Childliood 



mMi 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

Cliap. Copyright No. 

Shell._-__W_i_G 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 



INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 



BY 
FRANCES FISHER WOOD 



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NEW YORK AND LONDON 
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

1897 






Copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers. 

All rig/its reserved. 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. PAGE 

I. Preventable Diseases 1 

II. The Young Babe 12 

III. Regularity in Feeding 24 

IV. System in Sleeping 31 

V. Rational Dress 45 

VI. Digestive Disorders 53 

VII. Sense-develorment 60 

VIII. Rational Feeding 66 

IX. Sterilized Milk 75 

X. From Infancy to Childhood .... 92 

XI. Normal Obliquities 102 

XII. Value of ]\Iilk as Food 110 

XIII. Contagious Diseases 119 

XIV. Variation op Rules 128 

XV. The Nursery 132 

XVI. To Avoid Self-consciousness .... 139 
XVII. The Nursery-Maid 146 



INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 



INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 



CHAPTER I 

PREVENTABLE DISEASES 

Sir Joseph Fayrer reports that in Eng- 
land preventable diseases kill 125,000 per- 
sons a year, and entail a loss of labor from 
sickness estimated at $40,000,000 per annum. 
The Prince of Wales, when presiding at the 
Hygienic Congress of August, 1891, said : " If 
these diseases are preventable, why are they 
not prevented ?" Statistics showing a steady 
decrease in the relative number of deaths 
prove that each year a larger proportion is 
prevented. In England the death-rate in 
1660 was 80 per thousand ; in 1690 it fell to 



2 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

42 per thousand ; in 1750 to 35 per thou- 
sand ; in 1850 to 25 ; and in 1890 to 18 per 
thousand. That is, in England the ratio of 
deaths to population was nearly five times 
as great in 1660 as it was in 1890. The 
average duration of human life has doubled 
since the time of the Eoman Empire, and 
to-day the mortality from all diseases is in 
Italy as great as it was in England a century 
ago. 

The greatest decrease in the death-rate 
AYas in the seventeenth centur3\ Then 
Europe, emerging from the superstition of 
the dark ages, first conceived the possibil- 
ity of natural causes for disease and death. 
That era marked, in England at least, the 
beginning of public sanitation. People be- 
gan to entertain the idea that cleaning the 
streets was more effective to stop the plague 
than the prayers which they had been wont 
to offer to the images of their patron saints. 

The second great advance in the preven- 
tion of disease has been inaugurated within 



PKEVENTABLE DISEASES 3 

the past twenty years. The faint concep- 
tion of the seventeenth century, that disease 
might have a natural cause, culminated in 
the now recent discovery of what that cause 
really was. With the acceptation of the 
germ-origin of disease, public sanitation and 
medical science began to pass from indefinite, 
general measures for the prevention of dis- 
ease to more and more definite and specific 
safeguards ; and the public health of the 
past decade has been indicated by further 
decided and still increasing diminution of 
the death-rate in all civilized countries. 

That preventable diseases are still in great 
measure not prevented is due to the fact that 
the vitally important and growing knowl- 
edge of germ-infection, and the great laws 
under which these factors are operative 
(which is reducing the practice of medicine 
from a blind art to an exact science), are not 
as yet accepted in practice except by the 
better educated members of the medical pro- 
fession. Even in their hands it is limited in 



4 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

usefulness because not supplemented by sim- 
ilar knowledge on the part of the patients 
whom they attend. A physician is not in- 
vited or permitted to prevent disease in the 
families which he attends. He is usually 
not called until acute disease has already 
fastened on his patient. He is consulted 
about the cure, and not called for the pre- 
vention of disease. 

A certain class who insist on being face- 
tious, even when facing death, add to the 
current stock of feeble jokes about the phy- 
sician's self-seeking, the assertion that pre- 
ventable diseases are not prevented because 
such a course would be suicidal to the physi- 
cian himself, limiting his income, and finally 
depleting the ranks of the profession. While 
it is true that with the decrease of disease a 
smaller percentage of men Avill be needed in 
the medical profession, such decrease, unfort- 
unately, must be too gradual to affect men 
already in practice, and in future can operate 
only to call fewer and better men to the 



PREVENTABLE DISEASES 5 

medical profession. To these men the change 
of work from the cure to the prevention of 
disease cannot but be wholly beneficial. 
Their ranks once purged of charlatans and 
ignorant pretenders, who thrive on the super- 
stitious fears of patients in the grasp of acute 
and chronic disease, the profession would be 
greatly raised in the general estimation, and 
its Avork would become in reality vastly more 
important to the community. 

The very idea of the prevention of disease 
presupposes a comparatively large body of 
skilled and scientific medical advisers — men 
Avho prate not of symptoms, of potencies^ 
and of cures, but who, in cases under their 
watchful eyes, can anticipate and therefore 
prevent acute illness. A physician will not 
then be called in an emergency (merely as a 
last desperate resort), but will be consulted 
regularly by every family, not about scarlet- 
fever and diphtheria, but as to diet and dress, 
exercise and education, and will be called 
upon to adjust all the vital details of daily 



6 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

life that make sound health. ^N'ot only will 
many men be needed, but their work will 
be less exhausting and more satisfactory to 
themselves and to the community than un- 
der the present system. 

A true physician unites with the brain of 
the scientist the heart of the humanitarian. 
In the prevention of disease he, as a scientist, 
feels all the mental exhilaration of conquest, 
while as a humanitarian he experiences the 
highest degree of happiness in being able to 
confer the greatest possible benefit upon 
present and future generations. 

The world's work in the future prevention 
of disease must come under three great 
heads. The first of these in point of time, 
and possibly of importance, lies in scientific 
discovery by original investigators in the 
fields of biology and hygiene. The second 
lies in the appropriation of these results by 
the medical profession, and in their practical 
application in every possible direction. The 
third lies in an extension of the knowledo^e 



PREVENTABLE DISEASES 7 

possessed b}^ these two classes (and at pres- 
ent almost limited to them) to the community 
at large, especially to the mothers, without 
whose co-operation a physician is powerless 
to enforce his principles. 

The purpose of the present work is to as- 
sist in the prevention of disease in this last 
direction. It makes no claim to original 
scientific investigation ; and for the physician 
so much which is technical and exact has 
already been written upon the same subject 
that he has no need of popular works bearing 
upon it. But the books which are so valuable 
to professional men are too abstract and tech- 
nical, or too voluminous, for the general pub- 
lic. There is hence an urgent demand for 
reliable information, simply presented, which 
may be easily comprehended by unscientific 
people, especially by mothers ; they, when it 
is brought to their knowledge that much of 
the disease current among their children may 
be prevented, earnestly desire to learn how 
to begin working towards that prevention. 



8 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

Such information is not intended to make 
the mother independent of the physician, but 
rather to lead her to appreciate the fact that 
only the soundest medical advice, supple- 
menting her most intelhgent and earnest 
efforts, can diminish the amount of illness 
prevalent in her family. The slight knowl- 
edge she may gain cannot make her inde- 
pendent of the scientific skill of her physi- 
cian, but is necessary merely that she may 
be able to co-operate with him to produce 
the desired immunity from illness. 

That the mother's influence is so important 
an element in the prevention of disease arises 
from the fact that most of the successful 
work in that line must be done with chil- 
dren under five ; and that after fifteen years 
of age it is not only too late to begin, but 
almost too late to produce any appreciable 
and permanently favorable effect upon the 
general constitution, by that time thorough- 
ly established in disease tendencies. After 
puberty the greater part of the work done 



PREVENTABLE DISEASES 9 

by the physician must be in the treatment 
rather than for the prevention of illness. 
The size, general health, physical strength, 
nervous force, and power of endurance of 
any child is practically determined before he 
is five years old. Indeed, it is determined in 
a great measure before he is born ; but dur- 
ing the first years of life the susceptibility to 
improvement is at its maximum, and heredi- 
tary strength may then be increased or 
hereditary weakness modified to a degree 
that is never afterwards possible. The 
united power of the mother and of the phy- 
sician to influence the future physical condi- 
tion and vitality of a child is practically 
limited only by the general public ignorance 
which exposes a child to outside danger and 
infection, from which it has been with much 
effort successfully guarded at home. 

Here, too, in public hj^giene the scope of 
woman's influence is increasing, and it is to 
be hoped that, once educated to a conception 
of the hygienic conditions that should pre- 



10 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

vail in the home, she will widen her influ- 
ence to extend and improve general legisla- 
tive measures for the protection of the gen- 
eral public. She can thus not only guard her 
own children, but at the same time protect 
the children of mothers less accurately in- 
formed of the dangers of infection. 

The time must come when contagious dis- 
ease Avill be considered a crime, either of the 
individual or of the community by whose 
carelessness it is propagated. During the 
last century the responsibihty for disease 
was universally placed upon the Almighty, 
who was thought to send it either as a pun- 
ishment or as a warning of sin. During the 
present century we have transferred the re- 
sponsibility largel}^ from the Creator to his 
creature, the microbe. It is to be hoped 
that the coming twentieth century will con- 
vince mankind of the error of both these 
views, and that we may learn to place the 
burden upon neither the infinite nor the in- 
finitesimal, but to realize that it is too petty 



PKEVENTABLE DISEASES 11 

for the one as it is too vast for the other, 
being of exact size to fit the shoulders of the 
genus homo. When we as individuals and 
as members of the community accept the 
full personal responsibility for all diseases 
and deaths except those resulting from acci- 
dent and old age, we shall have gone a long 
way towards general physical regeneration. 



CHAPTER II 
THE YOUNG BABE 

The care of the new-born child is really 
less difficult than at first would appear. It 
is quite as important to know what not to 
do as what to do for its comfort. Most 
mothers and nurses try to do too much, di- 
recting their efforts, however, in lines where 
they are not only wasted, but are positively 
injurious to the feeble recipient. A young 
babe is an uncomplicated being ; the latent, 
intricate organization of adult life is with it 
still inactive. When a guest of maturer 
years enters our household we need, in order 
to make him comfortable, to learn his habits, 
his tastes, his prejudices. But an infant 
comes to us without any habits or tastes or 
prejudices. It has eyes, but they see not; 



THE YOUNG BABE 13 

ears, but they bear not ; tongue, but it ques- 
tions not ; bands, but they meddle not ; feet, 
but they go not into mischief. 

The new-born child has but two sets of 
organs in conspicuously active operation — 
the respiratory and the digestive. As the 
lungs work independently of any outside 
aid, we may be allowed to consider a child 
during the first few months of its life as 
practically an incorporate stomach ; and we 
shall be safe in limiting our contributions in 
the way of attention to that organ. The 
majority of mothers consider this view a 
base libel, and are not slow to proclaim that 
every mother's child of them all is from the 
very first manifestly more than a stomach ; 
that every child loves to sit up and look 
around, to see visitors and to be dandled ; 
that it shows its will-power in its determina- 
tion to be carried, held, or rocked ; that it 
knows full well w^hen it desires to be fed, 
and equally well w^hen it desires not to 
sleep. But all this is, on the face of it, really 



14 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

absurd. An animal, human or brute, is born 
with but one instinct fully developed — that 
of hunger. Whatever else a very young 
child knows or desires has been artificially 
communicated by the attendants, who have 
forced upon it taste and desires unsuited to 
its immaturity. If 3^ou would know at what 
age a child should begin to sit up, wait un- 
til natural, healthy development prompts it 
to sit. It will creep when the proper time 
comes, and walk when its limbs are suffi- 
cientl}^ strong, and the power of equilibrium 
is adequately established in its feeble brain. 
If a child is surrounded with the proper de- 
gree of light, warmth, and air, and if its 
stomach is properly taken care of, we may 
rest assured nature will do the rest. 

A child should literally be intelligently let 
alone. It should not be handled, or held, or 
rocked, or amused, nor should its attention 
be attracted in any way. For the first five 
or six months it should lie quietly in its bed, 
or basket, be regularly fed, and as regularly 



THE YOUNG BABE 15 

encouraged to sleep. It will of course get 
tired. Therefore it needs occasional turning, 
with change of position, and a gentle rubbing 
of the limbs or back. A good rule is to 
stroke the little body for a few minutes, and 
to change its position every time the baby 
needs to be made dry. The natural rapid 
growth of infancy makes the flesh tingle and 
the limbs ache, and frequent rubbing with 
the palm of the hand promotes future health 
as well as present comfort. 

To man}^ mothers it seems impossible to 
follow this simple rule of leaving a child 
alone, to be influenced by favoring natural 
conditions. To such it is only necessary to 
say that it has been successfully accom- 
plished in many cases even in America, 
where babies are seemingly unusually trouble- 
some, while such abstinence from meddling 
is the accepted rule in many other countries. 
That American babies seem to need so much 
diversion and entertainment cannot be as- 
cribed to the climate, for the Indian pap- 



IG INFANCY AND CIIILDHOOD 

pooses are invariably left to themselves, 
except when dressed or fed. Nor can it be 
a race characteinstic, for in England it is con- 
sidered very injurious to permit a child to sit 
— that is, to bear its weight upon its spine — 
before it is six months old. The true cause 
probably lies not in the children at all, but 
in the recognized restlessness and nervous- 
ness of American mothers, who, by expend- 
ing their fiercest energy in injudicious at- 
tention to their children, perpetuate in the 
coming generations this nervous tendency, 
so highly undesirable, because ever fatal to 
the highest physical vigor and the best men- 
tal development. Many a child languishes 
for lack of the few things that are really 
necessary to be done, but that are neglected 
in favor of unsuitable attentions lavished 
upon it onl}^ to its detriment. 

In order to preserve for a young babe the 
proper conditions of light, warmth, and air, 
and yet to lift and carry it as little as possi- 
ble, it is necessary to have for its first nest a 



THE YOUNG BABE 



movable bed. Any basket with the sides 
and bottom carefully protected and padded 
will serve, but the most convenient is the 
regular dog-basket, with a hood on one side. 
This, w^hen properly draped, serves to ex- 
clude draughts, w^hile the drapery may easily 
be readjusted to vary the degree of light. If 
a child occupies a stationary crib, it must be 
moved from its bed w^henever its room is 
aired or cleaned, or is needed for other pur- 
poses. But when such a basket is used, the 
child and bed together may be changed from 
one room to another, or from one part of the 
room to a darker or lighter corner, or to a 
cooler or warmer one, as convenience or 
comfort may suggest. Most important of 
all, a mother, without confining herself to 
the nurserv, can keep the infant under her 
own eye while engaged in her ordinary daily 
occupations. Even though she does not per- 
sonally feed and care for her baby, she can 
thus superintend and criticise the nurse's 
efforts. 



18 INFANCY AND CIIILDIIOOD 

By this method she may also experience 
the greatest of all maternal enjoyment — 
that derived from watching the daily devel- 
opment of her child. Also, she can at the 
same time, Avithout interruption or fatigue, 
conveniently sew or read, write or study, re- 
ceive visits, or direct her household affairs. 
Outside Avork, either of a social or a business 
nature, should be undertaken by no Avoman 
during the first six months of her infant's 
life. She herself needs, and has by the 
rights of maternity earned, that amount of 
rest from either nervous or physical over- 
strain. Furthermore, years of a mother's 
devotion later in life can ncA^er compensate 
a child for neglect during the first fcAV 
months. 

After the sixth month a child usually be- 
gins to teethe. Voluntary muscular action is 
then more frequent. Feeble beginnings of 
individual Avill-power are manifested. The 
babe gradually recognizes the world outside 
of itself. It is no longer merely an animated 



THE YOUNG BABE 19 

stomach ; other faculties and functions start 
into activity. 

All this varied development makes increas- 
ing demands upon the nervous system, react- 
ing upon the physical nature, and immediate- 
ly manifesting themselves in a checking of 
the phenomenally rapid growth to be noted 
during the first six months of every healthy 
child's existence. If the precious first six 
months have been properly used, the devel- 
opment of the second six months is not less 
rapid, although it expends itself in other 
directions than in purely physical growth. 
This, however, should normally take place, 
without any disturbing elements or violent 
check. But if the first half-3^ear has not 
been employed to build up the maximum of 
ph\^sical strength, and to train the child into 
normal, healthful habits, the second half-year 
is confusion worse confounded, and in too 
many cases records the death of the child. 

Habit rules us all, but is absolute master 
of the unresisting infant. A baby is a natu- 



20 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

ral autocrat, recogniziDg no authorit}^. It is 
in vain that the mother tries to induce it to 
sleep at the proper time, or strives to hush 
its cries when the desired food is not forth- 
coming. What she cannot accomphsh, how- 
ever, the simple power of habit can bring 
about without a struggle. If the child is 
fed at absolutely regular periods, it will be 
hungry then and at no other time. If it 
sleeps day-by-day by the clock, sleep it must 
when the hour strikes, whether it will or 
no. Even the stomach can be trained into 
the habit of digesting the maximum amount 
of food necessary for the full nutrition and 
growth of the body ; and when so trained, it 
possesses marvellous power to carry on its 
accustomed work under such temporary ir- 
ritation or derangement of the general sys- 
tem as would render a child with a weak 
stomach seriously if not violently ill. 

The first six months of life, therefore, form 
the mother's golden opportunity. If she do 
not then lay well the foundation, the whole 



THE YOUNG BABE 21 

superstructure must betray this primary de- 
fect. Then and then only will all the ele- 
mentary forces of nature be on her side. 
Later some elements, if not all, will be 
against her. If she neglect the child at first, 
or leave it to the untrained care of a nurse, 
she will, as a penalty, certainly spend many 
times six months during its later life in nurs- 
ing it in illness or caring for it in invalidism. 
Complaints of even the moderate expenditure 
of money and time necessary to establish an 
infant in sound health during the first year 
of existence come from many parents who 
ungrudgingly give a hundred times as much 
to the same child in its twentieth year of 
life, and this because they fail to realize that 
that first year w\as really more important in 
determining the success of its future life than 
the whole nineteen which followed. What 
^ve must do, we can do. If a woman is seri- 
ously ill, she can and does lay aside her reg- 
ular occupations. If she goes abroad for 
a hal: ear, she returns to find that neither 



22 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

her home nor the American continent has 
been revolutionized during her absence. If 
a mother recognized the real necessity for 
such a sacrifice, she would find that she 
could easily give six months of superintend- 
ence to the early life of the child, especially 
since she need not by so doing relinquish 
the quieter, less exhausting occupations that 
may be carried on inside her home, and must 
sacrifice only such social excitement or heavy 
professional duties as exhaust her strength 
and rob the child of her care. 

The emphasized importance of the first 
six months of life arises not from the fact 
that there are any unusual clangers to be ex- 
pected during that period, for in the ordina- 
ry course of events diseases culminate rather 
in the second half-year. But the first six 
months are the most valuable in any scheme 
for the prevention of disease. Precisely dur- 
ing this period is laid the foundation for the 
habits of digestion and sleep, which, if well 
established, will carry a child safely through 



THE YOUNG BABE 23 

the remainder of the first year, and will also 
influence for good the whole of his subse- 
quent life. The majority of children seem 
to flourish until they begin to teethe ; then 
the slight irritation and physical disturbance 
of this process reveal any original weakness 
of the constitution — a weakness in many 
cases increased by unscientific care during 
the earlier period. Differing from the popu- 
lar opinion, all the best medical authorities 
agree that "teething" never causes disease; 
but it often betrays weaknesses hitherto un- 
suspected, which have resulted from poor 
feeding, over-excitement, or improper cloth- 
ing, and which existed before and up to the 
time when teethin^^ began. 



CHAPTER III 
REGULARITY IN FEEDING 

The popular notion that the second sum- 
mer is the most precarious period of a child's 
existence is absolutely disproved by all statis- 
tics. Four times as many children die in the 
first year of life as in the second, and with 
each month's existence a normal child's hold 
on life is strengthened. If a baby is steadily 
deteriorating in physical condition, the sec- 
ond summer is, of course, more dangerous 
than the first, but if, as the result of proper 
care, the child is following in all its powers 
and proportions the more natural rule of ac- 
celerated growth manifested throughout the 
whole animal kingdom, the second summer 
finds its chances of life and of freedom from 
disease very much more favorable than they 



KEGULARITY IN FEEDING 25 

were during the first year. During the sec- 
ond half of the first year a mother should in 
no wise relax her vigilance in the care of her 
baby ; although if the first half has been 
judiciously used, the increased vitality, the 
greater powers of endurance, and the estab- 
lishment of the regular habit of sleep will 
permit her to maintain an equal degree of 
caution while devoting to the work less time 
and effort. 

Teething is a natural operation, and ought 
to take 2^kice in a child as easily and as nor- 
mally as in other young animals, which at 
worst suffer but a few days' irritation of the 
gums, and refuse a few of the usual feedings 
rather than endure the discomfort caused by 
mastication. If a baby is accustomed to 
awake at all hours of the night, and to sleep 
at any hour of the daytime, then even the 
slight irritation of teething interrupts or al- 
together prevents its sleeping. But if it has 
during several months slept soundly all night 
and napped regularly each day, the habit will 



26 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

have become too strong to be broken by any 
slight pain. In one case the restless child 
grows weaker day by day for want of ade- 
quate sleep ; in the other, the rested child, 
even though teething, grows stronger every 
day, because still enjoying its regular amount 
of sleep. 

The same principle applies to food. A 
child that is injudiciously fed throughout 
the night, and given nourishment irregularly 
whenever it cries during the day, suffers in 
consequence from impairment of its digestive 
powers, and becomes susceptible to germ in- 
fection throughout the mucous lining of the 
alimentary canal. Such a child, while it 
suffers from chronic hunger caused by the 
craving of the general S3^stem for adequate 
nourishment, yet never at any one time ex- 
periences the wholesome acute hunger of 
normal health, and therefore, when teething, 
alternately refuses food or consumes it so vo- 
raciously that each feeding only serves to ag- 
gravate the stomach trouble already existing. 



KEGULAKITY IN FEEDING 27 

Its flesh, already too white and soft from 
malnutrition, now wastes away so readily as 
to convince the mother more firmly than 
ever that teething is a " disease." The dis- 
eased condition in reality existed previously, 
and the soft white fat was, to more experi- 
enced eyes, one of its manifestations. When 
a really Avell-fed, well-nourished child begins 
to teethe, habit induces it to take a due 
amount of food, even though the nipple does 
hurt the sore gum, or the piece of bread does 
touch the tender spot over the pricking tooth. 
The child, in short, must eat, because its 
hunger is so acute and habit so strong. 

My own baby, reared in the routine here 
advised, had t\velve teeth when a year old, 
sixteen teeth at sixteen months, and the en- 
tire set at two years of age. During that 
time he refused not a single meal, and lost 
no night of sleep. His first three double 
teeth were through before it was suspected 
that he was cutting one. Such a record is 
the rule rather than the exception with chil- 



28 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

dren who have been reared by the proper 
sj^stem. 

With this explanation, the emphasis laid 
on the first six months of life will not seem 
unduly exaggerated, and the details of the 
care necessary to produce such results as 
described wall seem to mothers to be of suf- 
ficient importance to be dwelt upon at 
length. 

As the new-born babe has no regular es- 
tablished habits, the operations of sleeping 
and eating at first naturally tend to interfere 
with one another. When the child should 
feed, it is often asleep ; and w^hen it should 
sleep, it persists in being hungry. The al- 
most universal injunction given in medical 
w^orks is never to interrupt a child's sleep 
for any purpose whatsoever, not even for 
feeding. But this rule, if strictly carried 
out, absolutely precludes any regularity ei- 
ther in sleeping or eating. An infant does 
not distinguish night from day. It will quite 
probably sleep four or five hours at mid-day. 



REGULARITY IN FEEDING 29 

and desire to remain wide awake and de- 
mand frequent feeding all night. Both for 
the comfort of the mother and the health of 
the child it is of course necessary that the 
latter should learn the difference between 
night and day, and be induced to sleep at the 
proper time. 

This lesson can best be taught by indirec- 
tion. The question of feeding should, de- 
spite the verdict of the learned doctors, have 
first consideration. Throughout the animal 
kingdom the necessity for food is the primal 
and all-absorbing instinct. From the very 
first a child should be fed equal quantities 
of food at absolutely regular periods, even 
though he must be awakened from sound 
sleep to receive this amount. And from the 
beginning a child's stomach should enjoy at 
night an interval of rest, even if this interval 
is at first not longer than five hours. If 
the mother begins when her babe is young 
enough, it requires but a few days to estab- 
lish this useful habit. Those few days will 



30 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

be clays of weariness to the mother and dis- 
tress to the child, but that first victory will 
render all the other subsequent educational 
battles easier. One such successful contest 
may, indeed, become also the basis of a 
sound system of future discipline, the ef- 
fects of which will endure as long as the 
child lives. 

Many important advantages grow out of 
this first rational habit of regular meals 
when it is once firmly established. The 
baby is no longer found asleep when it 
should eat. Periodic hunger, resulting from 
a regular habit of feeding, will soon waken 
him at the proper time. His stomach, ac- 
customing itself to the new routine, de- 
mands food at the usual time, and is not 
clamorous at any other period. Since it is 
not overfed at one time and underfed at an- 
other, the stomach learns to desire and to 
assimilate all the food required by the sys- 
tem, and thus the body accomplishes the 
maximum amount of growth. 



CHAPTER IV 

SYSTEM IN SLEEPING 

It is not wise to attempt to teach a baby 
more than one thing at a time. Neither the 
mother's strength nor the child's endurance 
should be taxed to carry on several contests 
at once. All forces may wisely be concen- 
trated on the vital points, one after another. 

It will require some days after the baby 
submits to regular feeding to ascertain just 
how much it can assimilate each time it eats, 
and what is the best interval to maintain 
between meals. During this experimental 
period, even though the hours of sleep do 
not receive especial attention, the hours of 
feeding Avill of necessity determine to some 
extent tlie periods of rest. If sufficiently 
well fed, a babv even a month old can 



33 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

easily go without food from 11 p.m. to 
5 A.M. And when once convinced tliat no 
food will, in any event, be forthcoming be- 
tween these hours, it will usually fall into 
the habit of sleeping soundly during this 
time. Should it prove impossible, even af- 
ter weeks of patient experiment, to induce 
the child to sleep these six hours without 
food, it may be considered as positively 
proven that the food it consumes during 
the day is not sufficient for the demands of 
its system. If it has been fed regularly 
every two hours during the day from 5 
A.M. to 11 P.M., it has had ten meals, and 
this should be enough to carry any child 
through the other six hours of fasting, un- 
less the food is essentially deficient in quan- 
tity or quality, or both. Therefore, if after 
persistent trial the baby cannot be made to 
sleep at night without feeding, its food 
should at once be the subject of consulta- 
tion between the mother and her physician. 
As almost all young children are fed too 



SYSTEM IN SLEEPING 33 

much in quantity, the quality of the food 
is, in ninety cases out of a hundred, the ele- 
ment requiring investigation. 

If, however, this unbroken night's sleep 
is once accepted as a rule by the child, we 
should begin at once gradually to lengthen 
the time at both ends. The child should 
not be fed a minute before five o'clock, even 
if it is awake, and when it does not awake 
on time it should be allowed to sleep on 
as long as it will. In this way it will it- 
self, gradually and without any struggle, in- 
crease the hours of rest. 

The daily rule for sleeping and eatmg for 
the average child is that it should, when one 
month old, be fed every two hours from 5 
A.M. to 11 P.M., sleeping from that time un- 
til 5 A.M. again. At three months it should 
be fed every two and one-half hours from 
5 A.M. to 10 P.M., sleeping from 10 p.m. to 6 
A.M. At six months it should be fed every 
three hours from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., sleeping 
from 9 P.M. to 6 a.m. At one year of age a 



34 INFANCY AND CIIILDIIOOD 

child should be fed at seven, ten, two, six, 
and nine o'clock. The first and last meals 
should be given to the child in bed, from the 
bottle, while the other three meals should 
be fed from bowl and spoon, in order to be- 
gin the weaning process. 

During the fast of the night there should 
be always ready by the bedside a thorough- 
ly clean nursing bottle filled with water that 
has been boiled. If the baby is w^akeful, 
fretful, or hungry, allow him to nurse from 
this. A few sw^allows will suffice to calm 
him. The ordinary heat of the chamber 
will render the water warm enough for a 
child in health. If the infant is delicate or 
ill, the drinking-w^ater must be warmed to 
98° Fahrenheit in a cup of water placed 
over an alcohol-lamp on the table. Some- 
times w^hen a baby is breast-fed it will not 
drink even water from a nursing- bottle, in 
which case it is necessary to moisten its 
mouth as often as it cries with a fine, soft, 
white cloth saturated with water. An older 



SYSTEM IN SLEEPING 35 

child should be fed with water from a 
spoon. Water the child must have, and in 
abundance, during the troublesome nights, 
when the habit of sleep is not yet established 
and the desire for night meals is not thor- 
oughly overcome. 

Besides this most important sleep at night, 
regular day naps must be established as soon 
as possible. A new-born babe should, and 
usually does, sleep most of the time ; but 
if it is of a nervous temperament, there 
is danger, as it grows older, that it Avill 
fall into the habit of catching short naps 
at odd moments, and of indulging in no 
profound, lasting rest during the Avhole 
day. By the time a child is three months 
old it should have formed the habit of sleep- 
ing from ten to twelve hours at night, and 
of napping at least two to two and one- 
half hours twice during the day,. The in- 
tervals after the 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. feed- 
ings are the most favorable times for these 
rests. 



36 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

In 111}^ experience with my own baby this 
habit of regular clay naps was the most diffi- 
cult to establish. It required only three or 
four days to accustom the child to regular 
feeding, and but two nights' struggle to teach 
him to submit to the inevitable and to agree 
to consider the night as the time for sleep. 
But it was only after several weeks of unre- 
mitting effort that any regularity in day naps 
was established. By adhering to the first 
principle of leaving a baby quietly in its bed, 
one is debarred from the usual method of 
rocking or singing the child to sleep. What- 
ever lessons were taught had to be imparted 
as he lay in his basket. The child would 
sometimes fall asleep not more than half an 
hour before the time for the bottle, and when 
awakened by the periodic hunger, would 
have had insufficient rest ; or he would fall 
asleep while nursing before he had taken the 
requisite amount, and must needs be aroused 
to finish the meal. We were finally obliged, 
whenever he was fed, to resort to the expe- 



SYSTEM IN SLEEPING 37 

(lient of deliberately keeping hira awake until 
lie had consumed the usual amount, and at 
other times, as far as possible, to prevent his 
napping between the regular hours of sleep. 
When the hour for a nap arrived he was given 
his usual bottle, after which he was quietly 
and soothingly stroked down his back, sides, 
and limbs, and then turned over to lie on 
his stomach. The inside of the basket was 
darkened b}^ the adjustment of the drapery, 
quiet was enforced in the sleeping -room, 
and he was left to sleep — to which the 
bottle, the rubbing, and the comfortable 
position soon Avooed him. It was from the 
first easy to induce him to sleep, but diffi- 
cult to prolong the sleep for any consider- 
able period. By leaving him on his face 
during the length of time desirable for him 
to sleep, and saying '* Sh !" whenever he 
awoke or called out, he in time imbibed 
the idea that it was sleep or nothing during 
those hours, and therefore he yielded again 
to the inevitable. 



38 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

It was rather a weary time, that period 
of discipline, for no nurse could be trusted to 
exercise the degree of firmness and gentleness 
necessary to obtain the desired result without 
injury to the child. Yet it certainl}^ proved 
time well spent; for after he was ten weeks 
old one had only to turn him over on his face 
when the hour for sleep arrived, and leave 
him entirely alone. It was absolutely cer- 
tain that he would be asleep in five minutes, 
and would sleep for a fixed length of time. 

For ever}^ hour spent in the initial train- 
ing, innumerable hours of labor which would 
later be consumed in rocking the child to 
sleep are saved to the mother, to say nothing 
of the gain to the child in a nervous way — 
of dropping asleep quietly, resting so pro- 
foundly, and sleeping so long. 

Our great scientists tell us that with all 
the superficial differences between the civil- 
ized and savage man only one divergence is 
vital — the savage thinks and plans for the 
present, the civilized man thinks and plans 



SYSTEM IN SLEEPING 39 

for the future. The mothers of the past who 
resorted to any expedient, however irrational, 
wdiich rendered the w^ork of the present mo- 
ment easier, reverted to the methods of the 
savage. The scientific mother of to-day, 
who takes present pains in order to avoid 
future trouble, who increases the labor of 
to-day in order to diminish the sum total of 
effort necessary for the training of her child, 
thereby marks her system as one in har- 
mony with the highest type of civilization. 

A strict method of discipline is of course 
possible only w^ith a child who is compara- 
tively well. Rules and regulations must be 
held in abeyance through any severe illness ; 
but the nearer we can approximate to regu- 
lar habits, even with a sick child, the better 
it is for the child. By establishing strict 
daily rules and by maintaining a wholesome 
system of nourishment, sickness wnll be the 
rare exception for a young child, and while 
ill health may be allowed to modify regular 
rules, it need not abolish them. 



40 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

The weak point in any system of home 
discipline hes with the parents. It has been 
said of Herbert Spencer's theory of educa- 
tion that it would be absolutely perfect if 
only the parents were perfect. Yet a good 
system feebly enforced is, in so far as it is 
enforced at all, certainly superior to a poor 
system. Twice when lecturing upon the 
training of children to an audience of wom- 
en, I have, after the lecture, been approached 
by one of my hearers, who in each case 
made almost the same criticism upon Avhat 
had been said. Though the two women 
were unknown to each other and in cities 
far apart, each said virtually the same thing. 
Both suggested politely that however ad- 
mirable the lecture might be in its general 
scope, it could not be valuable to more than 
a small portion of the audience, since it was 
addressed to those only who possessed in- 
domitable will power ; and that while all 
would probably acknowledge the wisdom 
of my suggestions, few could be steadfast 



SYSTEM IN SLEEPING 41 

enough to follow them out against inevita- 
ble opposition. To which stricture I can, in 
connection with the present subject, say that 
if a mother clearly recognizes her lack of 
will-power, never is the time more propitious 
for her to begin to exercise what little she 
has than with the infant a few weeks old 
who has none at all. Perchance by that ex- 
ercise her own too feeble will-power may be 
induced to keep pace with the growth of 
that of her child. In any event, it is her 
only hope for supremacy, and, therefore, is 
an opportunity that should be eagerly em- 
braced. 

Sound, restful sleep, both by night and by 
day, is more easily induced if from the first 
the child be taught to lie on its stomach and 
face. The only necessary precaution against 
suffocation is the provision of a smooth, fiat, 
somewhat hard hair mattress without a pil- 
low. The advantages of this position are 
many. Some one has said that half the 



42 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

diseases of infanc}^ result from keeping the 
stomach too cold, and the other half from 
overheating the spine. By adopting the 
position suggested as the uniform one dur- 
ing the hours of sleep, the stomach and ab- 
domen are kept so warm as to prevent col- 
ic and stomachache, and materially to aid 
the digestive process, while the spine and 
back of the head are no longer overheated 
by the increased temperature of the sleeping 
child. It may be a coincidence merely, but 
it is at least a significant one, that all the 
children the writer has known to rest habit- 
ually face downward have been unusually 
sound sleepers, and have enjoyed more than 
average good health. 

It is surprising to see how early a child 
will discriminate and show preference for 
the face position, and how readily it accom- 
modates itself to this attitude. A child from 
eight to ten weeks old will already have 
learned to turn its head from side to side to 
obtain the relief of a change of position. 



SYSTEM IN SLEEPING 43 

A young baby on its back is as helpless as 
a turtle in the same position ; its one possi- 
ble motion is the throwing out of legs and 
arms, and each such movement uncovers the 
child and exposes it to draughts. Placed on 
its face, a babe two or three months old will 
not only rest itself by frequent changes of 
the position of all portions of the body, but, 
since it is powerless to reverse itself, it can- 
not get uncovered nor lapse into any un- 
wholesome cramped position. It is quite 
otherwise when the infant is lying flat on 
its back. This position not only invites in- 
digestion, but it also causes bad dreams and 
night frights, and promotes the dangerous 
habit of mouth-breathing. 

The first basket for a child should be 
made up with but one sheet, which will 
serve to cover and protect the mattress. 
Over this the child should lie between wool- 
len covers. The ideal bedclothes for a baby 
are small camel's-hair blankets, which weigh 



44 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

almost nothing, and yet are sufficient, one 
under and one over the child, for even the 
coldest Aveather. A small square of heavy 
double-faced Canton flannel laid under the 
child, between the night-dress and napkin, 
will prevent any wetting of the under blan- 
ket. 



CHAPTER V 
RATIONAL DRESS 

To be ideally comfortable and well, a child 
should, during the first year of life, be cloth- 
ed entirely in silk and wool. Knitted silk 
shirts in summer and wool in winter, with 
socks of the same material, make, with the 
napkin, one complete cover for the little body. 
Harsh, heavy, or coarse flannels should never 
be placed next the delicate skin of a young 
baby. The underwear that an adult finds 
grateful for its pure w^oolly roughness may 
so irritate an infant as to induce serious ner- 
vous trouble. We may now, however, obtain 
at moderate cost dainty knitted woollen shirts 
or flannel stockinet of such exquisite texture 
as to feel soft to even the rose-leaf delicacy 
of a new-born baby's skin. The garments 



40 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

that are worn over this should be made in 
princesse style, now known as the Gertrude 
pattern, Avithout bands or strings, and but- 
toned behind, so that they can all be put on 
together. The inside dress should be of 
wool. Canton flannel as a material for in- 
fants' clothes is altogether an abomination. 
It is heavy and stiff and thick, but never 
Avat-ra. Cambric skirts and waists are entire- 
ly unnecessary^, and, in such degree as they 
add weight and bulk, are really injurious. 
The garment worn immediatel}^ under the 
dress may be of silk-warped flannel, which 
will answer the requirements of warmth and 
yet will not show too deep a yellow through 
the thin dress. The dress itself, for comfort 
as well as beauty, may wisely be made of 
w^hite China silk. 

For a young baby, in cold weather, two 
garments are needed between the under-shirt 
and the dress. These should be made, one 
of Jaeger white stockinet, and the other of 
silk-warped flannel. Neither one should be 



KATIONAL DRESS 47 

more than long enough to cover the feet. 
These materials are so beautiful that thej 
will require no embroidery or trimming. 
Simple feather-stitching will be sufficient to 
render both garments lit for a princess; and 
yet they will not cost as much and will be 
more durable than the usual long, heavily 
embroidered flannel skirt, and the longer, 
rauch-betrimmed cambric abomination called 
an over-skirt. Properly apparelled in the 
silk and woollen clothing, a baby has every 
garment as soft and warm as his own delicate 
flesh, and cannot be irritated or hampered 
by his dress, at least. 

Silk-warped flannel skirts and white China 
silk dresses have an extravagant sound, and 
undoubtedly seem quite bej^ond the purse 
of many, who yet really spend double the 
amount that would be needed to purchase 
these articles on garments that are at once 
inartistic and unhealthful. The layette usu- 
ally provided for a child is a barbarism. It is 
elaborate, yet not beautiful ; expensive, but 



48 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

not useful ; troublesome to make and keep 
in repair, and yet not comfortable for the 
wearer. 

White China silk costs from fifty cents to 
a dollar a yard. The dress, like the flannel 
under-garments, may be made entirely plain, 
and, at most, should not be more than forty 
inches long. The expense of such a dress is 
not more than half that of the ordinary hid- 
eous over-embroidered gown, which is beyond 
home skill to make or home talent to launder. 

On the subject of napkins a word remains 
to be said. The most expensive is not here 
the best. Cotton napkins are much to be 
preferred to linen ones. The linen allows 
the moisture to pass through and to saturate 
the clothing. The cotton absorbs and retains 
it. Of course the baby should not be allowed 
to remain wet after his condition is discov- 
ered ; but even the brief time that must oc- 
casionally elapse before he receives proper 
attention makes the fact that Avet linen is 



RATIONAL DEESS 49 

much colder than wet cotton of no small im- 
portance. Put the extra money that linen 
napkins would cost into a larger number of 
cotton ones. It is almost impossible to pre- 
pare too many. 

Habit is a great helper in keeping the baby 
dry, just as it proves to be in making him 
sleep and eat. If for a few weeks an infant 
is changed promptly every time he requires 
it, he will learn to grunt and fuss significant- 
ly whenever he is wet, conveying as clearly 
as if by word that he w^ants and expects to 
be relieved from discomfort. 

Among the habits which materially con- 
tribute to the maintenance of good health, 
and which should be early established, is that 
of regular movements of the bowels. It is 
possible to accustom even very young babies 
to using the chair — some experienced nurses 
maintain at as early an age as two or three 
months. But even if it is possible, it is prob- 
ably undesirable for any baby under six 
months of ao-e either to sit on the chair or to 



50 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

be held in an upright position over it. It is 
possible that less harm results from the usual 
method of using the napkin than from this 
constant disturbing and handling. But some- 
where between the ages of six months and a 
year, according to the strength and physical 
development of the individual, this habit of 
cleanliness may usually be established with- 
out injury to the child and with less difficulty 
than at any later age. 

The mother or nurse should, however, take 
the Avhole burden of the lesson upon herself, 
and not lay any part of it upon the baby, for 
w^hose feeble brain the task of remembering 
or indicating the necessity for the chair is an 
unwise strain. The whole aim of the first 
six months should be to make the body grow 
and to keep the brain quiet. 

A child less than a year old must never be 
disciplined in the sense of being expected to 
make a conscious mental effort. It should 
be trained only so far as habit, and not con- 
scious effort, aids us, and then only in those 



RATIONAL DIIJ:SS 51 

physical functions, such as sleeping and eat- 
ing, which are with the child purely animal. 
That is, we must not at this immature age 
keep the child on the chair for any length of 
time, or endeavor to impress upon his mind 
the necessity of emptying bowels or bladder 
at that particular moment. We should rather 
shoulder the responsibility ourselves, and so 
carefully time our efforts that they coincide 
with the natural inclinations of the baby, 
thus making the lesson physical rather than 
mental. 

All disciplinary efforts for the first two 
years of life should be in the line of estab- 
lishing and strengthening physical habits. At 
the same time we must make every effort not 
only not to encourage, but actuall}^ to retard, 
any complicated mental effort. It would be 
better to delay the formation of the habit of 
using the chair until the end of the first or 
the beginning of the second 3^ear than to 
impose on the child any sense of responsibil- 
ity, or to encourage it to any conscious effort 



52 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

to communicate its wants. If we can so ac- 
curately anticipate the child's wants as to 
hold him over the chair for a minute just at 
the right time, and have the inspiration to 
continue this practice with judicious regular- 
ity, then the physical comfort alone will in 
most cases induce the child to respond to 
one's efforts. 



CHAPTER VI 
DIGESTIVE DISORDERS 

For any obstinate form of irregularity of 
the bowels medical advice must be sought. 
Of the two extremes, diarrhoea is from the 
medical standpoint the more serious, and de- 
mands more immediate attention. But for 
a thoughtful mother, concerned for the ulti- 
mate welfare of her child, both are equally 
signiJScant, and convey wider lessons than are 
usually mentioned in connection with either. 
While the medical treatment of these troubles 
in their various manifestations must needs be 
left to the phj^sician, the discussion of their 
ultimate consequences occupies an important 
place in any scheme for the prevention of 
disease. 

Diarrhoea, in nearly all its forms, from the 



54 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

most simple to the most serious, is now be- 
lieved to indicate an excess of noxious mi- 
crobes somewhere in the intestinal tract, and 
points directly to grave errors in the method 
of feeding. It also demands prompt treat- 
ment by which these microbes may be 
washed from the digestive organs. The 
mother should make it her most imperative 
duty to accept the first w^arning of this kind, 
and to rectify mistakes in feeding before re- 
peated attacks of the same nature impair the 
integrity of the mucous membrane of the 
part upon which the microbes have fastened. 
It is a matter of perhaps twenty-four hours 
to clear the system of microbes at the first 
attack, while it may require months or years 
to restore the organ to its normal condition 
after it has once been injured by the repeated 
attacks of these germs. To nourish the child 
while this reparatory process is going on is a 
problem too often beyond the power of mater- 
nal affection or medical skill to affect. 

Constipation teaches an entirely different 



DIGESTIVE DISOKDEKS 55 

but hardly less important lesson. It usually 
indicates that the child receives too little 
nourishment, or nourishment which is too 
concentrated. It may sometimes in a degree 
be temporarily even a favorable sign. A 
child whose diet is changed from food which 
contains injurious germs to good germless 
food will usually become constipated for the 
very lack of this dangerous irritation which 
the microbes produced upon the intestines. 
Any sudden impetus to more rapid growth, 
whereby the body assimilates a larger pro- 
portion of the food taken, may also be the 
cause of constipation. It needs careful study 
and discrimination on the part of the moth- 
er to ascertain whether the constipation is 
chronic and deleterious, or whether it re- 
sults from conditions which are temporary 
onl}^ and will in the end even prove favora- 
ble. If the constipation is chronic, and shows 
evidence of increasing, a change of food is as 
important to the well-being of the child as it 
was in the case of diarrhoea. If it is merely 



56 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

temporary, patience and tlie application of 
simple remedies will soon correct the trouble, 
and demonstrate conclusively that this was 
simply the precursor of an improved condi- 
tion. In case of constipation, from what- 
ever cause, it is wise to increase to the point 
of toleration the daily amount of water that 
the child consumes. 

If a child is over a year old it should 
be taught to drink from a cup, but even 
a young babe should be given water from 
a spoon or bottle several times a day. In 
addition to this, a movement of the bowels 
should be artificially induced, either by glyc- 
erine suppositories or oil - and - water injec- 
tions at a regular hour each day. This re- 
sponsibility should rest on some one person, 
either the mother or a trustworthy nurse, 
and must never be omitted or varied if the 
constipation is to be overcome. Among the 
physical aids for the cure of constipation 
are vigorous out-of-door exercise for older 
children and abdominal massage for babies. 



DIGESTIVE DISOKDEKS 57 

The habit of drinking daily a quantity of 
water is one that is valuable in many ways. 
Its importance is seldom sufficiently empha- 
sized. It is not enough that the child should 
take an occasional glass of water, or that the 
babe should be given a spoonful as a rarity. 
But the habit of water-drinking is essential 
to the well-being of every child. Most chil- 
dren will occasionally ask for water at meals, 
or will take a swallow of ice-water when 
they see others drinking, or will enjoy water 
with lemon, or fruit, or jelly, or sugar, or 
flavored Avitli tea or coffee ; but water pure 
and simple it seldom occurs to a child to 
demand, or to a mother to offer, although of 
all foods this one is the most important, and 
no other contributes so directly to the health 
and growth of the child. The tiniest baby 
should be given a teaspoonful of water many 
times during the day ; and if at night it takes 
water from a nursing-bottle, it will require 
during several hours no other nourishment. 
A child tw^o years old may with advantage 



58 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

drink at least a pint of water every twenty- 
four hours, and a child from three to four 
years old will not infrequently consume a 
quart of water in the same time. 

All water fed to a child should have been 
boiled, and must be kept in a bottle or carafe 
that can be closely stoppered. It should 
neither be warmed nor cooled, but should be 
given to the child at ordinary temperature 
as it stands in the living-room. It should 
always stand within sight of the infant, and 
within reach of an older child. Where it is 
necessary to go down-stairs or into another 
part of the house in order to obtain a drink 
for the child, it usually has no drink at all 
except at such times as its thirst becomes 
intense. It is not necessary or advisable to 
give water to a child during meals, but at 
other times it may safely be allowed to drink 
as often and as much as it will. It may even 
be encouraged to increase the amount, if the 
water that is used has first been boiled and 



DIGESTIVE DISORDERS 59 

is of the proper temperature. We cannot of 
course force a child to drink, nor is it pleas- 
ant to over-urge such a necessary operation. 
But by having water always at hand we may 
make drinking easy, and by providing a 
pretty cup, or making some merry play, we 
can go farther and make the drinking of 
plain water really attractive until the habit 
is firmly fixed, when it will regulate itself. 



CHAPTER VII 
SENSE-DEVELOPMENT 

There is a conviction prevalent that a child 
which is left so completely to itself as the 
method previously described would indicate 
Avill, at least during babyhood, be slow and 
dull, and will feel bored for lack of interests. 
But in reality the undisturbed child, while 
serene and sweet, is in every waldng moment 
also unusually and uniformly active and gay. 
He discovers and interprets gradually and 
naturally both the small ego and the great 
non-ego ; and since he discovers them from 
the standpoint of his infant observation, not 
forced prematurely from the point of view 
of the adult mind, he will find in the process 
endless amusement without disturbance or 
excitement. 

The sense of touch is the last of the human 



SENSE-DEVELOPMENT 61 

powers to be wiped out by the on-coming of 
death ; it is also the first to develop in the 
new-born infant. The first sensations of this 
outer life are usually not agreeable to the 
new-born child. His feeble wail, a protest 
against the wide unknown, seems to invite 
our compassion, and usually tempts the at- 
tendants to offer injudicious petting. If, 
however, the first feeble sense of touch is 
used to give the child a point of contact with 
the new world, a baby even a few hours old, 
unless it is in pain, will be comforted if it is 
allowed to clutch in its tiny fist the finger of 
some friendly hand. 

The prehensile powers of a baby are- pro- 
portionately much greater than those of a 
mature man. Many children, when only a 
few weeks old, are able to sustain their weight 
by hanging by the arms. Through this abil- 
ity to grasp and liold whatever comes in con- 
tact with their curving fingers comes their 
first self-taught lesson, and their first means 
of diversion and investifj^ation. 



03 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

To the first sense of touch the average 
child a week old adds a feeble consciousness 
of the sense of sight, and begins to follow mov- 
ing objects with his eyes, or to observe any- 
thing that is shining or bright. At the age of 
a month it will turn its head and follow mov- 
ing sounds. When six weeks old a child will 
begin to distinguish, not by sight, but proba- 
bly by touch or smell, its attendants one from 
another. When ten weeks old it will so far 
in its feeble brain have formulated the fact 
of friendly attention that, if well cared for, 
it will no longer cry or wail unmeaningly or 
indiscriminately whenever it feels hunger, 
pain, or discomfort, but will grunt and scold, 
with cheerful and evident confidence that its 
wants will be considered as soon as made 
known. Some children at this age will fasten 
the eyes upon the person who usually attends 
to such necessities, cooing and chattering in 
a seeming effort to convey by the inarticu- 
late language of infancy their personal wants. 

When it was eleven weeks old, one of these 



SENSE-DEVELOPMENT 63 

JLicliciously neglected babies was heard to 
laugh out so loud as to frighten himself ; and 
another at the same age was proved to notice, 
distinguish, and show preference in colors, 
indicating great pleasure in dull blue, and dis- 
tress and physical discomfort at bright pink. 
At three months of age one child passed in- 
fantile judgment upon musical tones, scream- 
ing with apparent rage whenever the sharp 
tones of a hand-organ rose from the street, 
but cooing and laughing with deliglit when- 
ever a fine piano in an adjoining room was 
touched. Before this age the average child 
has also discovered himself. First he finds 
his hands, and they afford him many a day's 
amusement and furnish valuable lessons in 
natural history. He discovers successively 
that they move, that they belong to him, 
and finally, more wonderful still, that they 
move at his own volition. These movements 
are at first aimless and without purpose, but 
the gradual effort to convert them into in- 
tentional motions entertains many a baby 



G4 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

for days or weeks. The discovery of the 
head furnishes perhaps the greatest Avonder 
and amusement to the child, since, unaided 
by the sense of sight, he must explore that 
region with the help of the half -trained 
hands alone. As the little fingers wander 
round and round the tiny dome, a look of 
interest and comprehension will gradually 
replace that of astonishment, and this transi- 
tion marks another distinct epoch in the nat- 
ural mental development of the child. 

When we entertain and amuse an infant 
we do not help in its essential development, 
but rather hinder its normal growth. We 
excite and w^eaken it ; but nature teaches 
and strengthens the infant mind. A child 
three months old, already observing a differ- 
ence in sounds and in colors, and formulat- 
ing, even though feebly, the personality of 
those around him, faces literally the whole 
world of material sensations, and will gain 
more new information by his own unaided 



SENSE-DEVELOPMENT 05 

perception than either the father or mother 
could possibly acquire in a much longer time 
without an attack of nervous exhaustion. 
We cannot prevent this natural, rapid devel- 
opment, nor would we wish to do so ; but 
we need to avoid with the utmost care either 
interfering with or accelerating its progress. 
All the environment of a child should remain 
as nearly as possible the same day by day. 
'New rooms, strange faces, unusual sounds or 
sights, should be avoided in order that he 
may learn to know the "I" and "not I" in 
their simplest forms, and with the minimum 
strain upon the nervous system. 

When about a year old a child enters into 
its first comprehension of the power and 
value of language, which is the door of intel- 
lectual life. With this acquisition it leaves 
babyhood behind and crosses the threshold 
into childhood. 



CHAPTER VIII 
RATIONAL FEEDING 

Of the many elements of caution that dur- 
ing the first year of life contribute to the 
good health of the child, care in feeding is 
the most important ; perhaps more important 
than all the other elements combined. 

In considering, as we shall, one kind of food 
only, we do not desire to ignore the fact that 
there are other foods which have in many 
cases proved valuable, and upon which chil- 
dren have been successf ull}^ reared. Sterilized 
milk is, however, now recognized as the hest 
artificial food for children, and where we can 
obtain the best it is manifestly unwise either 
to consider or to use an inferior article, even 
though it may have intrinsic worth. 

The general insufficiency of the breast- 



NATIONAL FEEDING 67 

milk of the mothers of the present genera- 
tion, and the tremendous drain that lactation 
makes upon the average woman, put the 
natural food of infants in many cases out of 
the question. It is universally acknowledged 
that good breast-milk is superior to any other 
food for an infant ; but we must at the same 
time recognize that not one mother in ten 
can or ought to nurse her child for more 
than the first few weeks of its life. There- 
fore artificial food must be discussed not as 
a mere substitute, but as the general rather 
than the exceptional food for infants. Be- 
fore the discovery of sterilized milk many a 
mother, at the risk of her own health, and in 
spite of the fact that lier milk was insufficient 
for the demands of the child, still persisted 
in nursing it, rather than incur the perplexi- 
ties and dangers of the old system of bottle- 
feeding. Now, however, with the use of steril- 
ized milk, there is no longer danger of any 
sort, and perplexities may, by an exact sys- 
tem of feedino^, be reduced to a minimum. 



G8 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

Good breast-milk agrees with all children, 
and all except those essentially diseased thrive 
upon it. Good sterlized milk, properly pre- 
pared, proves its similarity to mother's milk 
in nothing so much as in the fact that it, too, 
agrees with all children, of whatever age or 
condition, unless they are so acutely ill that 
all milk must for a time be abandoned. In 
such rare cases a change to water, barley- 
water, gum-arabic water, or beef-juice for a 
time long enough to clear the intestinal tract 
of the collection of microbes is all that is 
necessary ; twent3^-four to fortj^-eight hours 
are usually sufficient. The feeding of the 
sterilized milk may then be gradually re- 
sumed by using in the barley-water a very 
small quantity of the milk, increasing it by 
a spoonful at each feeding, until the average 
proportion of milk and water is again at- 
tained. 

Great pains have been taken to collect sta- 
tistics on this particular point, and in every 
instance where good, rich, thoroughly ster- 



RATIONAL FEEDING 69 

ilized milk has been reported persistently 
to disagree with a child, some grave defect 
in the manner of administering it has been 
detected. In one case laid down as an argu- 
ment against sterilized milk, the baby was 
fed while lying fiat on its back, through a 
nipple in which the hole was so large as to 
allow a rapid stream of milk to flow down 
the child's throat and almost to strangle it. 
Naturally milk taken w^ith such rapidity 
violently disagreed w^ith the child. In other 
cases the milk w^as found to be administered 
quite cold, or too hot, or not properly diluted ; 
or it was taken from a bottle that had been 
too long opened ; or it was fed through a 
flexible rubber tube whose interior uncleaned 
surface polluted the milk as it passed. Many 
children just taken from a breast whose milk 
is thin and unnutritious crave and will rap- 
idly swallow an equal quantit}^ from the bot- 
tle ; whereas this milk, which is many times 
richer than the former food from the breast, 
should of course be given in smaller quanti- 



70 INFxiNCY AND CHILDHOOD 

ties. If given in equal bulk it will inevitably 
make a cliikl ill. It is not, however, steril- 
ized milk that should in such cases be con- 
demned, but the breast-milk, whose insuffi- 
cient richness taught the child to demand a 
quantity sufficient to produce chronic dilation 
of the stomach, and to create an abnormal 
appetite. Having made notes of thousands 
of cases, I have yet to find one child who 
w^ould not thrive on sterilized milk if prop- 
erly administered. 

There is, therefore, no need to discuss other 
foods, since what is acknowledged to be the 
best is always available, unless the child is so 
ill that it can digest no food at all. The ad- 
vantage of breast-milk over even sterilized 
milk arises from the fact that there is less 
room for error in its administration. Nature 
prepares the food of the breast, and Nature 
teaches the child the method of obtaining it. 
She leaves no room between the breast and 
the mouth for mistakes of any sort. Good 
sterilized milk is as germless and safe as 



RATIONAL FEEDING 71 

good breast-milk, but in its administration 
there is room for stupidity and carelessness 
that may neutralize its good qualities. Each 
detail in the preparation and administration 
of the bottle is of infinite importance. And, 
reasoning backward, the mother may be ab- 
solutely certain that if the effects are not 
good the preparation is defective. 

Some children do not thrive even upon the 
best food, whether it be artificial or from the 
breast. In ninety out of one hundred such 
cases the cause lies in the system of general 
management, which has resulted in an over- 
stimulated nervous system. A baby is, and 
should be, solely an incorporate stomach. 
The digestive processes should be the main 
object of its existence, and nothing else 
should interfere with this operation, or de- 
tract from the strength put into it A child 
less than a year old, if it is over-excited and 
over -entertained, continually diverted and 
amused, cannot properly digest its food. And 



73 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

when once it is thus over-stimulated, the ar- 
tificial craving for excitement is established 
as a habit, and the child demands or seems 
to require a continuation of the activity 
which is undermining its physical strength 
and impairing its digestion. In such a con- 
dition it is, of course, of no use to change the 
food, or to hope to find anything that will 
nourish the child. It is even wiser to reduce 
rather than increase the quantity given, since 
the amount of undigested food in the intes- 
tinal tract determines the degree of danger. 
If it is not too late for any remedy, the only 
one that can possibly contribute to the re- 
turn of digestive power is one that will in- 
duce less nervous activity. The child should 
be kept in a quiet, darkened room, under the 
care of one person, the mother if possible, 
and the best medical advice should at once 
be procured. 

The dangerous nervous disturbance with 
babies comes from too much handling, over- 
excitement caused by a child's seeing too 



RATIONAL FEEDING 73 

many strangers, and the too early stimula- 
tion of the organs of sight and hearing ; little 
or irregular sleep ; and too many, too early, 
or too noisy out-of-door excursions. It is a 
condition more easy to avoid than to cure. 
Its most serious result is the shattered ner- 
vous system, which the children who survive 
these attacks carry throughout life. 

Some mothers, having by lack of care in 
artificial feeding, or by over-excitement of 
the nervous system, impaired the child's nat- 
ural digestive powers, hope to avoid the con- 
sequences of their own carelessness by the 
employment of a w^et-nurse. This practice 
is, however, becoming more infrequent, and, 
it is to be hoped, will soon be obsolete. 
With the present improved and entirely safe 
methods of artificial feeding, there is no case 
where its dangers are not less than those in- 
curred by the employment of the average 
wet-nurse. An ideal w^et-nurse may exist, 
but is never to be found when an emer- 



74 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

gency demands. It is always dillicult, and 
in large cities impossible, to trace the ante- 
cedents of the women who apply for such 
positions. There is a strong chance that they 
are diseased, almost a certainty that they are 
immoral, and no hope that they will give the 
child any judicious or systematic training. 
Any one who has had experience with this 
class knows only too well the impossibility 
of restraining them in drink or diet, and no 
one can be certain that they will not dose the 
child to secure a night's sleep for themselves. 
The natural and inevitable risks that a baby 
encounters in its first 3'ears of life are multi- 
plied many times whenever a wet-nurse is 
employed, and it is an unusual combination 
of circumstances that can justify a mother in 
incurring such unnecessary dangers. 



CHAPTER IX 
STERILIZED MILK 

One-fouktii of all the deaths in the United 
States are of children under one year of 
age ; and nearlj^ one-half, in round numbers 
400,000, are of children under five. In cities 
this proportion rises during the warmer part 
of the year, until one-half of all the deaths 
are of babies less than twelve months old. 
The majority of these children die of dis- 
eases caused by germs introduced into the 
system in the uncooked milk and water, 
which constitute the sole diet of many in- 
fants, and the principal food of all young 
children. Intestinal diseases, counted non- 
contagious, carry off by far the greatest 
number. Experience has proved that these 
troubles may be modified, or in many cases 



7b INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

entire!}^ eliminated, by the use of germless 
food. By feeding the child only milk that 
has been sterilized, and water that has been 
boiled, we cease to feed the disease and be- 
gin to nourish the child. 

Sterilized milk is comparatively a new dis- 
covery, and the difference between its use 
and abuse is not 3^et distinctly defined in the 
public mind. The apparent simplicit}^ of its 
production has misled many physicians, as 
well as mothers, into applying the name to 
an article which possesses none of the vir- 
tues of sterilized milk. 

American investigation on the subject has 
been extremely crude, and so far is still to- 
tally inadequate as a basis for sound conclu- 
sion. Fortunately, in Europe the subject has 
received due consideration. German scien- 
tists especially have given much time to the 
investigation of the effects of various kinds 
of milk in the intestinal diseases of children. 
Also Tyndall, Lister, and Pasteur have care- 
fully studied milk in all its natural phases of 



STERILIZED MILK 77 

composition and decomposition. They have 
gone to the very foundation, having them- 
selves taken the milk from the cow, under 
varying degrees of atmospheric impurity, and 
carefully noted in each case the favorable or 
unfavorable environment; and they unani- 
mously declare that all milk from a healthy 
cow is absolutely pure and germless as it 
flows from the udder, but that its composi- 
tion, its animal heat, and its exposed surface, 
all combine to render it a most favorable 
medium for the cultivation of bacteria. On 
the other hand, the atmosphere of the ordi- 
nary stable, swarming as it is with germ life, 
at once furnishes in plentiful measure the 
microbes, which, coming in contact with the 
milk, instantly begin to multiply at an ap- 
palling rate. In any common stable milk 
cannot remain free from infection even while 
it is flowing from the udder to the pail. 

Koch, Escherich, and their celebrated co- 
workers have supplemented the investigation 
of milk in its natural condition by valuable 



78 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

studies of the germ life ^yhich is found in the 
intestinal tract of an infant, and have noted 
its variation in health and disease. They 
conclusively demonstrate the poisonous ef- 
fects of impure and germ-laden milk upon 
the delicate digestive organs of a child. 

All these scientists conclude that there is 
no strictly pure milk except that taken di- 
rectly from the udder of the cow; that the 
milk delivered in cities, whether twelve, 
twenty-four, or thirty-six hours old, is swarm- 
ing with microbes ; and that it varies only 
in the degree of its dangerous properties. 
Therefore they declare that all milk fed to 
children and invalids should first be care- 
fully sterilized in order to destroy its count- 
less bacteria, which otherwise would be in- 
troduced directly into the system. 

In Germany the danger of using unheated 
milk is so clearly comprehended that legal 
enactions regarding it are becoming every 
year more stringent, and it is already diffi- 
cult for a traveller in that country to procure 



STERILIZED MILK 79 

a glass of milk that has not first been steamed 
or boiled. In America the necessit}^ of ster- 
ilization is not so generally recognized, nor, 
if we may judge from the reports in medical 
journals, have the results been so exception- 
ally good. 

The inconsiderable proportions to which 
infant mortality has been reduced in the 
public institutions where even partially ster- 
ilized milk is used indicate, however, what 
blessed results might be hoped for if the 
milk supply was controlled by judicious leg- 
islation, and the quality and condition as it 
is delivered to consumers regulated by law. 

Contrary to the more mature opinion of 
European authorities, an American ph3"sician 
will occasionally affirm that sterilizing milk 
renders it less digestible, because it coagu- 
lates the albumen. Cooking meat and eggs 
coagulates the albumen, but we do not there- 
fore conclude that meat and eggs should be 
eaten raw. On the contrary, it is known that 
cooking meat renders it more digestible, pro- 



80 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

vided alwaj^s that it is not overdone. So in 
like manner the digestibility of sterilized 
milk depends upon the degree and duration 
of the heat which is applied. Milk that is 
swarming with microbes cannot be sterilized 
without prolonged heat applied on successive 
days. But fresh milk can be freed from 
germs w^ith such a moderate application of 
steam, that when once the milk is re-aerated 
it is difficult to distinguish it from the new 
milk of the milking-pail. 

Sterilized milk has usually been recom- 
mended as especially valuable in diseases of 
the stomach and bowels. Its highest value 
is not, however, as a medicine, but rather as a 
food. Favorable as are the results of its use 
for sick babies, its best work is always with 
children of average health and heredity. Its 
chief value is not in the cure, but in the pre- 
vention of infantile disorders. These, as a 
rule, attack those only whose vital powers 
have through some form of malnutrition 
been reduced below par. 



STERILIZED MILK 81 

The artificial foods that preceded sterilized 
milk in popular favor were all defective in 
one or the other of two ways — they were 
either unsafe or unnutritious. Those of the 
first class, comprising nearly all sorts of milk 
diet, furnished the proper and natural ele- 
ments of nutrition, but were dangerous be- 
cause they contained such abundant germ 
life that the child who took them was sel- 
dom well and often violently ill. Those of 
the second class included the patent baby- 
foods and condensed milk ; they eliminated 
the elements of danger arising from bacterial 
infection, but failed to furnish sufficient nour- 
ishment to meet the demands of a growing 
child. Each class avoided the danger of the 
other, only to incur as great a danger pecul- 
iar to itself. 

Milk as a food furnishes all the elements 
necessary to life and growth. Now that it 
also can be made free from germs, it is, when 
properly prepared, an ideal food, and its dis- 
covery has revolutionized the whole system 



63 INFANCY AND- CHILDHOOD 

of infant dietar3^ It is above all others the 
food which appeals to the common-sense of 
mothers. It is not artificial or mysterious in 
its composition. Sterilization is merely a 
method of restoring milk to its natural germ- 
less condition, and retaining as far as possi- 
ble its normal elements of nutrition. The 
process is simple, and the tests of its efficacy 
are easily applied without scientific training. 
The common belief that the ^Drimary ob- 
ject of sterilizing milk is to prevent it from 
souring is misleading. Milk that is in dan- 
ger of becoming acid before it can be used 
is already unfit to feed to infants. The im- 
portant object to be obtained by sterilizing is 
to destroy as soon and as thoroughly as pos- 
sible the bacteria, Avhich otherwise continue 
to feed upon the milk and to destroy the fat 
globules, the constituents containing the ele- 
ments essential for the nourishment of the 
babe. Most of the milk used for children is, 
even when fresh, deficient in fats, and the 
uninterrupted action of the germs renders it 



STERILIZED MILK 83 

simply starvation rations for any growing 
creature. 

Any mother can test the sterilized milk 
she uses and discover if it fulfils the two 
requirements of an ideal food for infants. 
Without the aid of chemist or microscopist, 
she can determine if it contains adequate 
nourishment and is free from germs. By 
pouring a small quantity of the milk into a 
graduated test-tube, and setting it aside for 
twenty-four hours, she may learn just how 
much cream it will yield ; and by placing 
one of the bottles in the temperature of a 
living-room for two or three days, she can 
ascertain if the milk is sufficiently well ster- 
ilized. 

Most children are fed too much in bulk. 
The milk they drink is not rich enough 
to satisf}^ with any normal quantity, their 
healthy appetite. To approximate to good 
breast-milk, we must start with cow's milk 
that will yield one-fourth its own bulk in 
cream ; this, when diluted with an equal 



84 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

amount of water, will yield a food that is 
safe, nourishing, and entirely adequate to 
all the demands of a hungry stomach. Fed 
on ordinary city milk, many children slowly 
die of starvation, or become in time the vic- 
tims of chronic illness resulting from malnu- 
trition. An infant may be fed to repletion 
and yet be poorly nourished. Scores of 
even breast-fed babies are half-starved with- 
out ever having suffered from hunger. Mal- 
nutrition is indicated by late dentition, poor 
bone formation, a tendency to rickets, bro- 
ken sleep by night, general fretfulness by 
day, a susceptibility to colds, and a liability 
to catch all the prevailing diseases in conse- 
quence of lowered vitality. 

Immunity from disease is especially im- 
portant during the first year of life, since a 
child's power of resistance is then at the 
lowest ebb, and its susceptibility to infection 
at the maximum. Statistics prove that with 
every month of existence a child's hold on 
life is strengthened. Four times as many 



STERILIZED MILK 85 

children die in the first as in the second year 
of fife. Good health means not present 
blessing* only for a baby, but every day's ex- 
emption from disease is so much increase in 
the surplus vital energy that shall render 
the child capable of resisting infection in 
future. And food is the agency by Avhich 
we must build up a strong foundation of 
permanent good health. 

The fact that one cannot produce perfect- 
ly sterilized milk at home is not an argu- 
ment against its domestic preparation, but is 
in reality the strongest of all pleas for a 
careful steaming of all the milk that is to be 
used in the famil3^ If the germs are so dif- 
ficult to destroy, so active and prolific, then 
the greater is the necessity for killing as 
many as possible before introducing them 
into the digestive system of man or child. 

Many mothers incur extreme and unnec- 
essary risk from the belief that when the 
milk is steamed it is thoroughly sterile; 
whereas if they realize that it is only par- 



86 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

tially sterilized, that the germs only, and not 
the spores, or seeds, are destroyed, they 
would exercise greater caution in its care 
and administration, and hence take fewer 
risks. 

With this qualification in mind, we may 
with clear conscience proceed to discuss the 
best methods of Jiome sterilization. First, 
the age and quality of the milk must receive 
careful consideration. During every hour 
in which the milk remains exposed to the at- 
mosphere, or is shaken b}^ the motion of trans- 
portation, it deteriorates, and the bacteria, 
which find lodgment in the milk almost as 
soon as it leaves the cow's udder, multiply in 
geometrical ratio. The common hay bacil- 
lus, found in all stables, and consequently in 
all milk, multiplies so rapidly that at the 
end of twenty -four hours its descendants 
number 10,000,000,000. These germs live 
upon the milk, and the microscope demon- 
strates that under their operation the fat 
globules composing the cream gradually dis- 



STERILIZED MILK 87 

appear, few or none remaining after the 
fourth day. With sterihzed milk, on the 
other hand, no change is visible, even witli 
the microscope, except a tendency of the 
fat globules to coalesce, a process popularly 
known as condensation of the cream. There- 
fore in fresh milk we find few microbes and 
many fat globules ; in old milk, many mi- 
crobes and few fat globules. 

Cow's milk differs from mother's milk in 
that it contains more casein, or cheesy mat- 
ter, and less of the necessary fat. To restore 
the natural proportion we need to use milk 
rich in cream, as from the Jersey or Guern- 
sey cattle. 

The process of sterilizing milk is simple in 
detail and easy to describe. The burden of 
the work lies in the effort to maintain uni- 
form and absolute cleanliness throughout the 
whole process. Not only must visible dirt 
be abolished, but the cleanliness of every ar- 
ticle that is to be used must, even to the search- 
ing e3^e of the microscope, be unimpeach- 



88 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

able. We need first to discard any apparatus 
t]iat is complicated in structure, or has parts 
inaccessible to air and light ; and any instru- 
ment that might furnish a favorable nidus 
for the propagation of germs should be at 
once rejected. 

All bottles to be used either for steriliza- 
tion or nursing should be spherical in shape. 
Sharp corners in the interior of a bottle are 
difficult, if not impossible, to clean, and may 
at any time retain an invisible particle of 
milk, to become the focus of tyrotoxicom 
poison, which cannot but prove fatal to a 
child. Only short nipples that are easily in- 
verted are allowable. There is no virtue in 
sterilized milk if it must, in its passage to the 
child's mouth, flow through a long rubber 
tube lined with colonies of germs. ]^o 
sponges or brushes should ever be employed 
for cleaning the bottles, for after they are 
used they themselves furnish more germs 
than all our cleaning can remove. Every 
bottle emptied of milk should be rinsed in 



STERILIZED MILK 89 

cold water, and then submerged in a pail of 
water in w^hicli has been dissolved an ounce 
of baking-soda. AVhen the day's collection 
of bottles is to be thoroughly washed, pre- 
paratory for refilling, it facilitates the pro- 
cess to have ready at hand a pail containing 
white castile soap dissolved in water, to 
which has been added a tablespoonful of 
ammonia. With this one may use a clean bit 
of cloth, tied to the end of a wire or stick ; 
or may shake in the bottle a piece of raw 
potato, small pebbles, sand, or rice grains. 
Cloth, potato, pebbles, or rice should, how- 
ever, not be used a second time. Whatever 
is employed must be renewed each day. 
After washing the bottles should be rinsed 
with boiled water, and then immediately 
filled with the milk to be sterihzed. 

The principle of sterilizing is simply to 
keep the bottles of milk in boiling water or 
live steam for long enough time to kill the 
germs. This may be accomplished with an 
ordinary tin boiler and steamer used for 



90 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

cooking, but is more conveniently done with 
some one of the numerous sterihzers which 
are offered for sale in large towns. Of these 
the best known are the Soxlet Sterilizer, in 
which the bottles are partially submerged in 
boiling water, and the Arnold Sterilizer, in 
which they are inclosed in a chamber of live 
steam. Both these sterilizers now come fur- 
nished with round-bottomed bottles, which 
are not only more easily cleaned, but are less 
readily broken by the repeated heatings, than 
the flat bottles. 

A variety of stoppers have been succes- 
sively used — rubber, cork, and cotton ; but 
for home use nothing equals for convenience 
and efficacy the double Soxlet cork of rubber 
and glass. . The initial expense is greater, 
but the saving of time and the superiority of 
result more than compensate for this expen- 
diture. 

The length of time necessary to sterilize 
milk depends upon its age, and varies with 
the apparatus that is used. The time, as 



STERILIZED MILK 91 

given by various experimenters, runs from 
thirty minutes to three hours. It is wise in 
the beginning of the work for a mother to 
set aside one bottle every day to test the 
efficiency of the process. The test bottle 
should be placed in a room whose tempera- 
ture is from 40° to 70° Fahrenheit. If the 
milk turns within forty- eight hours, the 
steaming is insufficient. If the milk remains 
good for from two to three days, it is safe to 
feed to the child. Milk sterilized at home, if 
it will keep longer than this, has usually been 
over-heated, and thereby so much changed in 
composition as to lose some of its value as 
food. 

In diluting sterilized milk, one should al- 
ways use water that has been boiled ; for or- 
dinary drinking-water is one of the most 
favorable elements for the propagation of 
bacteria, and may any time add again to the 
milk just those germs which we have been 
at such pains to eliminate. 



CHAPTER X 
FROM INFANCY TO CHILDHOOD 

After a child is a year old the measures to 
be adopted for the prevention of disease and 
the preservation of uniformly good health 
can no longer be given in such simple and uni- 
versal rules. A young infant is an unreason- 
ing animal, and with it the physical condi- 
tions alone need to be considered. Its food 
is simple and simply administered; and be- 
yond the general desire for physical comfort 
and satisfaction, it expresses no preferences 
and conveys no criticism of our methods. 

But after it is a year old a child begins the 
differentiation towards a more complicated 
existence. After that age a child is no 
longer simply an animated stomach. It has 
already found its hands, and learned that 



FKOM INFANCY TO CHILDHOOD 93 

they can clutch and grasp ; it has discovered 
its feet, and is fast learning the art of loco- 
motion ; it has become an apt pupil in the 
lesson of language, that instrument of all 
intellectual progress. It has formulated the 
ego ; and after the knowledge that " I am " 
is once defined it soon conceives the second 
lesson of "I want." Within a short time 
the "I want" is followed b}^ an ''I ought," 
and with this last conception the triple de- 
velopment of the ph^^sical, mental, and moral 
natures progresses. Kor in any considera- 
tion of childhood, from whatever standpoint, 
can these three simultaneous and interde- 
pendent lines of development be separately 
considered. If we discuss intellectual educa- 
tion, we find its success ever dependent upon 
the physical condition, and incapable of the 
highest attainment except in the presence 
of a normal moral sense. If we consider 
moral development, we find it inextricably 
complicated with that of the intellectual and 
physical natures. 



94 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

So in considering, as we at present aim to 
do, tiie measures that must be taken during 
childhood for the preservation of the best 
health and the practical elimination of in- 
fantile diseases, we find it impossible to 
consider the physical alone, but, even at the 
risk of seeming superficial, must touch, at 
least in many points, upon the mental and 
moral training of the child. Its phj^sical 
health is always dependent upon proper 
mental and moral training. Every physi- 
cian, for instance, encounters in his practice 
among children cases of illness whicli ter- 
minate fatally simply because the child is so 
wilful and undisciplined that his struggles 
against the prescribed and necessary course 
of treatment turn to the fatal issue the 
evenly balanced scales in which are weighed 
the alternatives of life and death. So the 
chronic habit of disobedience or deceit on 
the part of the child may neutralize the par- 
ents' best efforts for its physical improve- 
ment. And fretfulness, generally a result of 



FKOM INFANCY TO CHILDHOOD 95 

disease, is not infreqnentl}^, when it becomes 
a fixed habit, also one of the causes of ill- 
ness, or at least of chronic ill heath. Any 
discussion, therefore, which deals solely with 
the physical precautions for the prevention 
of disease must be absolutely inadequate. 
To obtain the desired result it is necessary 
to touch upon mental education and moral 
training, at least as far as they are involved 
in home discipline and home amusements. 

It is also important that parents who 
would comprehend and enforce the necessary 
measures for the preservation of their chil- 
dren's health should be famihar with the 
standard scientific authorities, which form 
the basis for any valuable educational dis- 
cussion. Every mother who aims intelli- 
gently to train her child should be familiar 
with those works of Spencer, Preyer, Perez, 
and Froebel which treat of child nature and 
child needs. Without some such prelimi- 
narv reading, it is difficult for a mother Intel- 



96 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

ligentl}^ to follow any rules that may be laid 
down. Every child must, in many points, 
prove itself an exception to the general rule 
by failing to conform to the average stand- 
ard ; and in order to appreciate to what de- 
gree this divergency is vital, and in what 
sense it is unimportant, one needs to compre- 
hend what the average standard really is, 
and to be familiar with the scientific laws 
underlying any special rules for education. 
If a more perfect knowledge is desired, and 
if the parent would be competent to make 
rather than to follow rules, to go back to the 
first principles underlying all development 
either of individual or of race, this knowl- 
edge can be obtained in no way so well as 
by a general study of the fundamental the- 
ory of evolution. 

It is well understood among scientists, and 
now generally accepted by all intelhgent 
peoj)le, that a child closely approximates, in 
many of its attributes, to the lower animals. 
Children are neither angels spoiled in the 



FKOM INFANCY TO CHILDHOOD 97 

making nor are they to be counted as illus- 
trations of natural depravity. The}^ are at 
first simply animals of a lower order in the 
scale of development, in whom the mental 
and moral qualities are nascent, and of 
whose present needs and future possibilities 
^ve can obtain no adequate conception ex- 
cept by an intelligent study of the lower 
species which they resemble. Each individ- 
ual child follows step by step, in its personal 
growth, the path by which the race has pro- 
gressed to its higher destin}^ It begins life, 
prenatally, as an aquatic animal. Its first 
attempts at locomotion are, like those of its 
brute ancestors, made on all-fours, while it 
possesses naturally, during the first year of 
life, prehensile powers greater than it can 
ever afterwards attain without the training 
of an athlete, and equalled only by those of 
its cousin, the ape. 

The value of a knowledge of evolution in 
its relation to the education of a child is too 
many sided to receive here more than a pass- 



98 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

ing comment. But as it is, in at least one of 
its phases, the foundation upon which we 
must build our educational work, that phase, 
if no other, should command our careful 
consideration ; for the history of evolution 
alone can indicate which traits of a child's 
nature are permanently and increasingly 
dangerous, and which are only temporarily 
disagreeable. It is of vital importance that 
we should withhold our discipline, and be- 
come, if possible, blind and deaf to those 
natural, transient, and universal faults of 
childhood which, the theory of development 
indicates, will cure themselves. Of no less 
importance is it that we reserve our atten- 
tion and influence for those errors which 
grow with maturity, and that we stamp out 
with, unremitting energy any serious and 
permanently evil habits in their very in- 
ception. But until the parent is able him- 
self to distinguish a fault from a sin, a na- 
tural, healthy impulse from a depraved ten- 
dency, it is not possible that he can give 



FROM INFANCY TO CHILDHOOD V\) 

any vital assistance to the child he aspires 
to train. 

To illustrate : All children are noisy. I^oise 
is the natural expression of natural animal 
vigor, and is necessary to the healthful devel- 
opment of all young creatures. Therefore, 
while a noisy child must occasionally be re- 
strained, it should never be punished, nor 
should mere harmless noise be made to seem 
to the child a thing to demand reproof. More- 
over, we should even encourage this natural, 
healthful tendency by providing a time and 
place in which its indulgence may be unre- 
strained. Unfortunately, to most children 
noise is made to appear the unpardonable 
sin, than which no error of the most serious 
moral nature is more constantly reproved. 

Even those childish faults which seem to 
the mature mind to involve a serious moral 
question are seen, wdien judged by the com- 
parative standard of evolution, to be likewise 
temporary and unimportant. For instance, 
untruth does not, in a little child, usually in- 



100 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

dicate any moral obliquity. It either arises 
from the purely animal instinct of conceal- 
ment, or it is a result of inaccuracy of obser- 
vation or the outgrowth of an over- vivid im- 
agination. From whichever of these causes 
it orignates, untruth has a tendency to cure 
itself with the development of the intellec- 
tual powers, unless the direct heredity bias 
towards it is exceptionally strong. In any 
case, punishment for falsehood is of doubtful 
wisdom. It often gives a child who was be- 
fore simply imaginative its first clear-cut idea 
of what falsehood really is, and leads a child' 
naturally deceptive to cultivate more subtle 
forms of untruth. It is quite possible, and 
usually easy, to teach a child absolute truth- 
fulness by leading it kindly and gradually 
to distinguish between reality and the crea- 
tions of its own imagination. If, in addition 
to this, the young find unvarying truthful- 
ness in the older people about them, if they 
understand that their parents regard as 
sacred every promise made to them, then 



FROM INFANCY TO CHILDHOOD 101 

their animal imitativ^eness will be the strong- 
est aid in cultivating the same quality of 
truth in them. 

Cruelty, selfishness, destructiveness, and 
violent physical manifestations of bad tem- 
per are among the evil tendencies which are 
strongest in childhood, and which have a 
natural tendency to correct themselves with 
increasing maturity. 

The majority of the faults of childhood, 
indeed, result from this predominance of the 
simple animal instincts; and if judiciously 
'ignored or mildly corrected, will drop away, 
to be replaced by more desirable qualities, as 
quietly and inevitably as the petals of tlie 
fruit-blossom drift to earth wlien the heart 
of the flower forms the young fruit. 



CHAPTER XI 

NOEMAL OBLIQUITIES 

Out of consideration for the peace and 
comfort of the remainder of the family, it is 
often necessary to correct and sometimes to 
chastise the child for undue indulgence in 
even natural traits. But punishment should 
be tempered by the comprehension that sav- 
age instincts are, to a greater or less degree, 
normal in all children, and that they will of 
themselves constantly diminish in strength. 

It is also important to remember that the 
attributes which are most disagreeable in 
childhood are really the most valuable in 
maturity. The noisy, incessant activity of 
the child develops into the energy of the 
man. Destructiveness in the young is the 
elementary manifestation of the investiga- 



normjvl obliquities 103 

tor's spirit. Troublesome obstinacy grows 
into perseverance ; and over - strong will- 
power, which often thwarts the parents' best 
efforts for the child's discipline, becomes, 
when properly trained, a most desirable 
quality in maturer years. Intentionally to 
diminish a child's power of resistance, his 
persistence, or the force of his will-power, is 
deliberately to rob him of the best capital he 
can ever possess. We may and must judi- 
ciously limit the exercise of these powers in 
order to make life with a strong-willed child 
endurable ; but the discipline is of temporary 
value only, and should be counted merely a 
convenience for ourselves. It can have no 
permanently valuable effect upon the child's 
future, except in so far as we convince his 
intellect, and demonstrate to his satisfaction 
the value of self-discipline. 

Among the traits which are not natural to 
childhood, which will, unless promptly elim- 
inated, increase rather than diminish with 



104 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

advancing maturity, are those arising from a 
too intense self-conscionsness — a trait which 
is foreign to healthy animal existence, and 
is one of the penalties we pay for our civil- 
ization. Among its manifestations we may 
note that of excessive bashfulness, or its 
counterpart, offensive boldness ; an eagerness 
for attention and commendation ; the demand 
for continual amusement or over-excitement ; 
and a chronic discontent or persistent f retf ul- 
ness. All these traits indicate an over-stimu- 
lation of the nervous system, and a preco- 
cious concentration of the childish mind upon 
itself. While disagreeable in the child, they 
are increasingly offensive in the man, and 
are always antagonistic to the highest per- 
sonal development. They should, therefore, 
at their first manifestation, receive the par- 
ents' most careful attention, and no pains 
should be spared to prevent their continued 
growth. 

There are also certain demonstrations of 
temper which are decidedly and increasingly 



NORMAL OBLIQUITIES 105 

dangerous. The sudden, short-lived temper 
of the baby, with its natural animal protest 
against that which is displeasing, is, as we 
have said, transient and in no aspect serious. 
But the temper which manifests itself later, 
which is brooding, or sullen, or malicious and 
lasting, should at its very first demonstration 
be counted as a danger signal, indicating 
the necessity for immediate and constant re- 
pression. 

A strong analogy exists between the 
growth of the body and the development of 
the mental and moral natures. If the body 
is properly fed, it will seldom indicate any 
condition of disease ; and if a child is pro- 
vided with healthy, rational occupation, ab- 
normal conditions of mind and heart will 
rarely be indicated. "We are only now learn- 
ing the elements of the science of dietetics 
for children, and outside the kindergarten 
little or no attention has been paid to the 
occupations of children, which should in like 



106 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

degree keep the higher side of their natures 
in normal condition. A better understand- 
ing of the proper occupations which Avould 
help to maintain a child in a condition of 
sound mental and physical health must come 
through a better knowledge of what has 
been counted as abstract science. Only by 
the comparative methods of evolution can 
we understand and guide the development of 
a child's nature. 

Evolution, as it teaches of heredity and 
environment, of growth and decay, of indi- 
vidual and race progress, must, as we have 
indicated, guide the coming generation of 
parents into that wider, wiser knowledge 
which is the foundation of all effort tow- 
ards a more rational system of education. 
Each parent has his separate and individual 
work to accomplish in studying the heredity 
of his own children, and in anticipating and 
preventing the manifestations of recognized 
ancestral weaknesses. 

Variation is the universally recognized 



NORMAL OBLIQUITIES 107 

condition of all living creatures, human and 
brute. It has ever been one of the prime 
factors in the development of the race, and 
is as purely scientific and impersonal as 
Kepler's laws of the motion of the planets. 
In discussing heredity, therefore, the phy- 
sician, recognizing the universality of the 
law of variation, simply seeks to ascertain 
what particular variation or combination of 
variations was peculiar to the immediate an- 
cestors of the child under consideration, who 
is their natural and inevitable exponent. No 
child is the child of its father and mother 
alone. It is the grandchild of four ances- 
tors, the great-grandchild of eight, and the 
great-great-grandchild of sixteen. It may 
revert to the individual idiosyncrasy of any 
one of these thirty ancestors, or even go 
further back and be most like some one of 
the multiplying numbers still more remotely 
removed. The responsibility for a child's 
deficiencies may not rest with either one of 
the two parents, and the remedy for these 



108 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

defects, which is in their hands, can only 
be found after careful consideration of the 
individual variations manifested in the an- 
cestors. 

We cannot prevent disease in childhood 
unless we know by this study of heredity 
what form of disease is most likely to attack 
the child, and therefore what part of the 
system requires special reinforcement. And 
before the best results can be attained, the 
w^ord and the idea of heredity must become 
as essential and as inoffensive to the parent 
as they now seem to the physician. 

The word heredity, for some inexplicable 
reason, is at present a proscribed one in al- 
most every doctor's vocabular}^ Physicians 
of the better class make a study of the indi- 
vidual heredity the basis of their diagnosis and 
prognosis in ever}^ case they are called upon 
to treat, but they often put the interrogations 
by which they obtain from the family of the 
patient the necessary data for a working the- 
ory without any direct mention of the word 



NOKMAL OBLIQUITIES 109 

heredity, or any detailed explanation of its 
importance as bearing upon the case under 
treatment. Most of these men have learned 
from painful experience that the word hered- 
ity, to them of universal and therefore imper- 
sonal importance, conveys to the mind of the 
less scientific patient some ill-defined insinu- 
ation of physical taint or moral weakness. 
Until a clearer, cleaner idea of the impor- 
tance of evolution and its bearing on heredity 
is popularly prevalent, the parent cannot be- 
come an intelligent second to the physician's 
effort to improve the condition of the child. 



CHAPTER XII 
VALUE OF MILK AS FOOD 

As has been noted, the individual peculi- 
arities of children, which begin to manifest 
themselves as early as the second year of 
life, act as obstructions to any set of fixed 
rules for the management of their daily life. 
Uniformity of management is usually possi- 
ble with all healthy children under a year 
old, but after that period modifications must 
constantly be introduced, in order to shape 
these rules to the peculiar necessities of the 
child under consideration. As the child is 
no longer an uncomplicated being, the daily 
routine cannot be as simple or as rigidly ad- 
hered to as heretofore. 

First, modifications in feeding become nec- 
essary, tending to\yards greater variety, in 



VALUE OF MILK AS FOOD 111 

which the preference of the child becomes 
an element of success. A child's wishes must 
not, however, be allowed to play too promi- 
nent a part in the selection of food. Certain 
definite principles of diet must be adopted 
and adhered to as the foundation for healthy- 
growth, and while the child's preference may 
to a degree modify them, it should not, as is 
too often the case, be permitted completely 
to overturn any rational system. 

It is universally recognized as a fact that 
the majority of people, both children and 
adults, eat too much food and demand too 
great a variety. Milk is the natural food of 
all young animals, and should, w^ith water, 
be the only article fed to the average child 
under a year old, and ought to be the prin- 
cipal diet of all children up to at least six 
years of age. The use of milk is sometimes 
too early abandoned under the plea that the 
child dislikes it. No young animal naturally 
dislikes milk. It is the normal and universal 
food of all 3'oung mammalia, and if it is re- 



112 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

pugnant to an}^ particular child, it must be 
because in that child has been cultivated an 
appetite for less wholesome articles of food 
— usually for meat. 

Milk might with advantage be used, to a 
much greater extent than is now usual, 
through all the period of rapid physical 
growth up to the time of maturit}^ Its im- 
portance as food for persons of nervous tem- 
perament of all ages is only now beginning 
to be understood. The difficulty of obtain- 
ing pure, fresh milk, at least in the centres 
of population, has limited its use and con- 
firmed many in the conviction that milk 
does not agree with them — a mistake w4iich 
has been fraught with serious results. The 
indulgence in an undue amount of meat, 
known to be injurious to the adult, is with 
the child absolutely fatal to any good re- 
sults. The American idea that meat three 
times a da}^ is necessary for the sustenance 
of life is positively disproved by facts, while 
the excessive restlessness and nervousness of 



VALUE OF MILK AS FOOD 113 

the American people indicates clearly the 
penalty they pay for this error of judgment. 
Whole races of vigorous, healthy people have 
lived and worked and accomplished great 
things almost or entirely without meat, and 
in nearly every instance of the kind investi- 
gation proves that milk was the article sub- 
stituted for meat. 

We hear much of the oatmeal of the 
Scotchman. Dr. Johnson, indeed, defined oats 
as an article fed in Scotland to men and in 
England to horses, whereupon some one re- 
plied, " But where can you find such men or 
such horses?" But it is certain that an ex- 
clusive diet of oatmeal could never have in- 
duced such bone and sinew and brain as the 
Scotchmen boast of, unless it was taken al- 
ways with a liberal allow^ance of milk. 

In the Oriental countries where meat is 
proscribed by religious principles, rice or 
some other grain is commonly given as the 
staple food of the country. But it is neces- 
sary to remember that these people, like 



114 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

the Scotchmen, usually take their grain with 
milk. These Oriental people have attained 
not only good physical development, but 
have demonstrated such intellectual power 
and subtlety that in their eyes we of the 
Anglo - Saxon race appear as crude barba- 
rians. 

We need not go so far for illustrations of 
the virtue of milk as an article of diet. The 
medical profession of England and America 
recognize the easy digestibility, rapid assim- 
ilation, and non-exciting effects of milk by 
prescribing it almost universally as the sole 
diet in severe cases of fever or nervous pros- 
tration. In our medical journals are cited 
in detail, from the best authorities, instances 
of children who when upon a meat diet 
displayed violent or vicious tendencies, but 
when changed to a diet of milk passed rap- 
idly into such a gentle, non-irritable condi- 
tion that they seemed to have been born 
again. 

Every physician encounters deplorable 



VALUE OF MILK AS FOOD 115 

cases of children three and four years old 
whose diet consists almost exclusively of 
meat, simply because their perverted appe- 
tites demand that article. In such extreme 
instances the most severe measures are justi- 
fiable in order to resume the natural and 
healthful method of feeding, to save the 
child's health if not its ver}^ life. We should 
permit it to become genuinely hungry by 
withholding all meat, or even all food, until 
it will consent to recommence taking milk. 
We ma}^ aid the child to overcome any tem- 
porary repugnance to milk by making it as 
palatable as possible. It may be aerated 
in a milk-shake, beaten in a cream- whip- 
per, flavored by 03^ster juice and renamed 
*' oyster soup," seasoned with any harmless 
essence, or made warmer or cooler, as the 
child may prefer. But milk it should have 
in some form, or be allowed no food at all. 

Variety is desirable, and even necessary, 
in the diet of all children ; but in seeking 
variety w^e should never lose sight of the 



116 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

main principle — that milk should be the 
chief and frequent article of diet, and meat, 
if not wholly excluded, admitted onl}'- as an 
occasional and non-essential part in the diet 
of any child under six 3'ears of age. Many 
children reach that age in superb health 
and with fine physical development without 
having known the taste of meat. The little 
one will naturally tire of milli if he is always 
given plain milk, milk, milk, without any 
change. But milk with oatmeal, milk with 
hominy, milk with cracked wheat, with 
cracked corn, Avith rice, with baked apples, 
seem in infantile judgment quite different 
dishes. There are also the various cream 
soups, made up without butter or seasoning 
beyond the natural pinch of salt. This also 
we may vary with a number of articles not 
taken with milk, but served in a different 
course, or offered as a separate meal. 

In a rational and healthful dietary for a 
child may be included those fruits and ber- 



VALUE OF MILK AS FOOD 117 

ries that are not seedy or of too coarse a 
grain, such as peaches, sweet apples, straw- 
berries, oranges, and dates. People frequent- 
ly declare that their children, who are al- 
lowed to eat large quantities of the decid- 
edly injurious meat, cannot take the really 
wholesome, desirable fruit. But we may be 
assured that the child to whom fruit is injuri- 
ous has had his digestive organs brought into 
an unnatural condition by unw^holesome diet. 
It rarely happens that a healthy child cannot 
be educated to enjoy and digest a large quan- 
tity of fruit. One especially vigorous baby 
three years old took regularly a large saucer 
of stewed prunes after breakfast, an orange 
after dinner, baked apples after supper, and 
a fruit luncheon of raw apples and dates half 
way between meals, not only without injury, 
but with positively demonstrated advantage. 
As for the young child's dislikes in the 
matter of food, they are, of course, only the 
outgrowth of errors of judgment on the part 
of the parents. If a child has never tasted 



118 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

meat, or candy, or cake, or pie, he naturally 
can neither desire nor demand these undesir- 
able articles. If he has always had milk as 
his chief diet, it will be impossible for him to 
dislike it or refuse to take it, unless the milk 
fed to him has been at some time tainted or 
acid, and so has given him a temporary re- 
pugnance to its use. 

The milk that takes the place of meat must 
not, however, be thin in fats. It should show 
in the lactometer — a simply graded test-tube, 
easily procurable at any druggist's — at least 
twenty per cent, of cream. If milk of this 
qualit}^ is not obtainable, cream must be 
added to bring it up to this proportion. It 
is also of advantage to have the milk steril- 
ized before it is fed to the child, since this 
process not only guards the child, as it does 
the infant, against the danger of contagious 
diseases, but averts the danger of irritation 
in the intestines, and prevents all the various 
forms of stomach and bowel trouble which 
so frequently result from the use of raw milk. 



CHAPTER XIII 

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES 

The average parent is too apt to consider 
the milder contagious diseases of childhood 
simply as inconveniences, of only temporary 
detriment to their victim. But we must 
recognize the scientific fact that no disease 
ever leaves the physical system absolutely 
unimpaired. To this we must add the fact 
that with healthy children growth is con- 
stant, and that the arresting of that growth 
by any disease really diminishes, to just such 
a degree as it extends, the ultimate size and 
vigor of the child who suffers from the ill- 
ness. Contagious diseases, however harm- 
less they may seem, should never be know- 
ingly incurred ; for even their least injurious 
results are unknown quantities militating 



120 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

against the development of the child, while 
there is always risk of more serious manifes- 
tations whose evil consequences may extend 
through the whole life of the child, and seri- 
ously impair both its usefulness and happi- 
ness. Therefore it is only our plain duty to 
guard against contagious disease as long and 
as far as may be. This is now possible to 
an extent never before conceived of. We at 
present understand, to a degree at least, the 
nature of contagious diseases, and out of this 
knowledge we gain power to avoid or to 
abort the disease. 

After the determination of the germ ori- 
gin of contagious diseases, special experi- 
ments were instituted among bacteriologists 
to isolate the germ of each disease known or 
suspected to be contagious ; and as the mi- 
croscope revealed the fact that more diseases 
than had previously been suspected were of 
germ origin, and were contagious, a reclassi- 
fication of diseases was based upon this dis- 
covery. The most important item of the 



CONTAGIOUS DISEASES 121 

reclassification was the removal of tubercu- 
losis, or consumption, from the non-conta- 
gious to the contagious list, since that dis- 
ease now claims more victims and causes 
a larger number of deaths than any other 
known. 

The most important result of all this re- 
cent bacteriological investigation has been 
the knowledge that contagious diseases are 
not incurred unless two conditions simulta- 
neously favor their inception. We must come 
in contact with the specific seed of any par- 
ticular disease, and we must furnish within 
the body, under conditions favoring its activ- 
ity, the proper soil for the propagation of the 
germ, or no contagion ensues. That is, we 
must have direct exposure to the disease germ, 
coinciding with such a debilitated condition of 
the system as shall render it susceptible to in- 
fection. Exposure to disease will not result 
in contagion if the sj^stem be in prime condi- 
tion ; nor will impaired physical vitality lead 
to the contraction of contao^ious disease ex- 



122 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

cept with direct exposure. Therefore it fol- 
lows that if with rational vigilance we guard 
against both these enemies, of which we are 
seldom forced to encounter more than one 
at a time, we shall safely resist any ordinary 
danger of contagious disease. 

With children the usual method leaves not 
only a loop-hole, but actually a large breach 
for the entrance of any chance infection. 
While adults are almost without exception 
offered only food that has been cooked, in 
which the germ life is therefore destroyed, 
many babies are fed entirely upon food 
which is literally swarming with microbes, 
any meal of which may contain germs of 
contagious disease and certainly will contain 
bacteria that will at least produce such irri- 
tation in the digestive tract as to induce a 
decided lowering of the vitality, thus making 
the child's system peculiarly susceptible to 
any contagion. Every drop of milk or water 
fed to a baby, and all the food given to a 
child, should be boiled or sterilized ; and 



CONTAGIOUS DISEASES 123 

each child should be maintained in the best 
possible general health, not only for his 
present comfort, but also for his future pro- 
tection against infection. 

To determine just when a child is or is not 
in average good health is beyond the power 
of unprofessional skill, but periodic physical 
examinations by a competent physician will 
detect even slight departures from normal 
condition. When it is comprehended that 
such systematic examinations are both less 
trouble and less expense than the diseases 
which are thus anticipated and prevented, 
more of our children will be allowed the 
benefit of such preventive treatment. We 
have our valuable cows and our imported 
sheep frequently inspected ; even our trees 
and vines are yearly pruned and trained ; but 
our children rarely receive any scientific at- 
tention at all until the active presence of 
acute disease has impaired their health and 
threatened even their lives. 

The most conspicuous phenomenon of child- 



124 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

hood is growth. The lives of all living creat- 
ures are rhythmic alternations of growth and 
decay. In childhood growth predominates ; 
in old age decay is gaining the ascendency. 
'Now the physical growth of the child is de- 
pendent upon the appropriation by its body 
of the proper material from outside itself, 
and is limited by the ability or fitness of the 
body properly to assimilate these materials. 
The elements absorbed by the system are 
taken as food into the digestive organs or as 
air into the lungs. Presupposing a supply 
of pure air and an adequate provision of 
nourishing food, such as has been suggest- 
ed in another chapter, the body's ability to 
utilize these materials marks its degree of 
health and its capacity for growth. 

To utilize to the best advantage these 
outside materials, food and air, two sets of 
functions, assimilation and elimination, must 
properly balance each other. Of all the mat- 
ter taken into the body through the lungs 
and stomach, a large proportion of it is 



CONTAGIOUS DISEASES 125 

quickly eliminated ; much of it is given off 
through the skin and lungs in the form of 
moisture and gas, and part passes through 
the excretory system. But after maturity 
the amount of matter daily eliminated is 
necessarily quite equal to that directly ap- 
propriated, though not of course the same 
material, in the same period of time, since 
the extra amount appropriated in childhood 
for purposes of growth is no longer needed 
by the adult. A certain proportion, which 
has previously been assimilated, and has be- 
come an essential part of the physical frame, 
is later thrown off as effete matter, to give 
place to newer, fresher atoms, slowly but 
constantly forming out of the extraneous 
material regularly consumed by the body. 
Eating, breathing, and sleeping help the body 
in its reparatory process. Exercise and bath- 
ing assist in the equally essential process of 
destruction and elimination. 

A mother may, unaided, decide upon the 
quality of the material furnished to the 



126 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

body of the child. She may be entirely 
competent to judge of the relative values of 
the food and air which her children receive, 
but medical skill alone can determine if this 
material is properly appropriated by the 
various organs of the body. Malnutrition, 
which usually precedes and inevitably invites 
disease, is frequently unsuspected until act- 
ual acute illness demonstrates its existence. 
Diminished respiratory power likewise pre- 
cedes, sometimes for years, any recognized 
manifestation of chronic lung-trouble. The 
degree to which the respiratory power of 
the individual child varies from the normal 
cannot be measured except by professional 
skill; but a physican can, in ninety -nine 
cases out of one hundred, select by physical 
examination, months or even years before 
the manifestation of any active lung-trouble, 
the people who are most likely to be at- 
tacked by pulmonary disease. With children 
to be forewarned is to be forearmed. With 
them any temporary trouble easily develops 



CONTAGIOUS DISEASES 127 

into chronic disease, while, on the other hand, 
they are happily more responsive to the pre- 
ventive treatment that would follow any first 
unsatisfactory indications. 



CHAPTER XIV 
VAEIATION OF KULES 

V 
During the second year of life a child is 
usually disposed to shorten its day naps. 
Two naps gradually give way to one, and 
even that one is, with increasing years, in- 
creasingly difficult to maintain. The care- 
ful tactics that will induce sleep in that com- 
fortable animal, a well-nourished baby, no 
longer suffice with an older child, who often 
persistently resists the inclination to sleep. 
It is the children of nervous temperament, 
who really need the greatest amount of rest, 
with whom it is most difficult to continue the 
daily naps after the second and third years. 
The incessant physical and mental activity 
of the growing child puts great strain on all 
its powers — such strain as even the most en- 



VARIATION OF KULE 129 

ergetic adult would be incapable of endur- 
ing. If this activity is continued unbroken 
for the twelve or fourteen hours of a child's 
day, it cannot but become a terrible drain 
upon the constitution of even the most vig- 
orous child. The maintenance of regularity 
in day naps with all children under six years 
of age is, therefore, important enough to 
merit especial effort. 

The best rule at which to aim is of course 
to follow tlie practice of the first year, and 
at the regular time for sleep, either by day 
or night, to place the child awake in its bed, 
make it thoroughly comfortable, darken the 
room, and leave it to fall asleep by itself. 
But as the rule is less important than the 
object for which it was made, if we cannot 
by strictly adhering to it accomplisii our 
purpose, we must then adopt such modifica- 
tions as appear necessary to induce the 
child to sleep. An active child cannot be 
snatched from the floor and, after the brief 
interval required for the process of undress- 



180 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

ing, summarily deposited in its bed with any 
certainty that it will not continue its play 
from that point of vantage with as great 
hilarity as ever. Left to itself, the child be- 
comes every minute more wide awake, more 
nervously active, and less in condition for a 
restful night's sleep ; whereas if it is rubbed 
or bathed, and taken into the arms for a 
quiet story or soothing lullaby, it may after- 
wards be deposited in bed, if not asleep, at 
least so quieted and drowsy that sleep in- 
evitably results within a few minutes. If a 
child who requires an hour to fall asleep by 
itself will drop off in five minutes if rocked 
or sung to, it is manifestly better that the 
mother should lose her five minutes of time 
and the child gain its extra hour of sleep. 
It should always, however, be remembered 
that such aids to sleep are exceptions to or 
modifications of the ideal system, and are 
made to meet the personal idiosyncrasies of 
the individual child. In their adoption we 
must not lose sight of the general rule that 



VARIATION OF KULE 131 

it is far better for the average child to fall 
asleep by itself, in the quiet darkness of its 
own room. 

A continuation of the regular habit of 
perfect rest once during the day, even, where 
sleep cannot be induced, a half-hour of ab- 
solute relaxation of the muscles and rest for 
the eye, ear, and tongue, is of the greatest 
advantage. To this habit man}^ older peo- 
ple undoubtedly owe the blessing of vigor- 
ous health coexisting with the power of con- 
tinued and exhaustin<T^ brain-work. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE NURSERY 

In the development of a child, vigorous 
exercise must rank in importance with nour- 
ishing food, pure air, and sufficient sleep. 
The last generation of children was not so 
fortunate as is the present in the matter ei- 
ther of good food or pure air, since the scien- 
tific importance of these materials for the 
building up of the body was not then so 
carefully regarded. But in the matter of ex- 
ercise the children of to-day are increasing- 
ly unfortunate. The tendency of population 
has for many years been most decidedly 
towards condensation ; and the limitation of 
space in our large cities, with the consequent 
overcrowding of nearly all our city houses, 
tends to confine the children to one room. 



THE NUKSERY 133 

This room, often, and indeed generally, over- 
crowded with furniture, permits the children 
no liberty to indulge in the most natural 
form of exercise — running. 

What is needed is a change in our estimate 
of relative values. We must come to realize 
the truth that the first few years of a child's 
life are the most important in their bear- 
ing upon his ultimate physical condition and 
mental attainment. To the children should 
therefore be devoted not the worst but the 
best room in the house ; best not in elabor- 
ateness of furniture nor comphcations of dec- 
oration, but best in size and position ; best in 
receiving the greatest quantity of sunlight 
and fresh air. What furniture is absolutely 
necessary — and nothing should be permitted 
that can be omitted — should be placed 
around the room against the wall. No fur- 
niture, unless it be an unobtrusive chair, 
should obstruct the centre of the room. All 
necessary seats should be in the shape of low 
couches or divans well cushioned. These 



134 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

possess many advantages over any form of 
chair. While they furnish room for the 
nurse or mother to sit, they make a capital 
place where the children may play, from 
which or upon which the tumbles are never 
serious, and on which the child may lounge 
or play when it could not be induced to sit 
in a chair. 

The floor should be always bare, of either 
painted or hard w^ood, and covered in the 
centre by a thick warm rug. It is often 
urged that bare floors, although much to be 
preferred in point of cleanliness, are undesir- 
able for a child who creeps or plays most of 
the time upon the floor. If a baby is learn- 
ing to creep in cold weather, it is not, how- 
ever, necessary, and certainly not desirable, 
that it should be allowed to creep upon the 
floor at all. The value of creeping bears 
no relation to the distance through which 
the child propels itself. Creeping is simply 
the preliminary exercise b}^ which a child 
strengthens its limbs for the initial effort to 



THE NURSERY 135 

walk. It gets just as much and as valuable 
exercise by crawling back and forth over a 
properly protected surface three feet by 
five as it can by sweeping a floor fifteen 
feet by twenty. It saves infinite trouble 
with a creeping child, and protects it against 
many colds and much dirt, if it is confined in 
a pen placed in one corner of the room ; or, 
better still, the child may be raised from the 
floor by placing him on some low couch sur- 
rounded with a railing. Such a pen, while it 
may be contrived easily and without much 
expense, may also be designed so elegantly 
as to be really an ornament to any room in 
the house. In this enclosure a baby may be 
placed during the months from the period 
Avhen he begins to creep until such time as 
he has learned to walk with certainty and 
vigor. By means of the sides of the pen he 
is soon able to raise himself to his feet, and 
by clutching its firm rail he easily learns to 
walk round its circumference, which to him 
seems endless. With a few simple play- 



136 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

things for company inside the rail, and with 
a friendly face and voice outside but within 
sight and hearing, the child, during this usu- 
ally most troublesome period of its young 
life, becomes simply no trouble at all, but 
grows and thrives to the extent of its power, 
and demonstrates conclusively that it is ab- 
solutely unnecessary for a creeping baby to 
undertake the dangerous navigation of the 
nursery floor. 

Older children can be taught to choose, 
when playing upon the floor, the part that is 
protected by the rug. But the average child 
sits on the floor by far too great a portion 
of the time. It is very easy, by a little fore- 
thought, to counteract this tendency by pro- 
viding a table, such as is used in the kinder- 
garten. Even a plain cutting-table will serve 
the purpose. Sitting or standing beside this, 
the child will find upon its limited surface 
sufficient room to create a world of interest. 
By the force of his vivid imagination it be- 
comes successively a complication of railroad 



THE NURSERY 137 

tracks, a field of exciting battles, a barn-yard, 
or Mount Ararat disgorging the inhabitants 
of the Ark. By this provision of a table or ta- 
bles there is less conflict and misunderstand- 
ing, even where several children are engaged 
in play, than is possible by the indiscriminate 
use of the floor surface, since each child may 
enjoy exclusive right to his own little table 
or definite portion of table, and within its 
limited space rule as undisputed monarch. 

If in addition to the nursery the older 
children can, during portions of the day at 
least, have the use of some adjoining room 
or hall which, Avith the nursery, furnishes 
space enough for a good run, it is of great 
advantage, especially when inclement weath- 
er or temporary indisposition prevents them 
from enjoying the usual out-of-door exercise. 

Throughout the children's quarters the 
furnishing should be extremely simple. First, 
in order that it may occupy as little room as 
possible, and, next, that it need not be too 



188 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

valuable to endure the rough usuage it is 
certain to encounter at the hands of the 
nursery vandals. Children should not be 
encouraged or even permitted to indulge un- 
duly their natural instinct for destruction ; 
they must not, on the other hand, be contin- 
ually worried by warnings not to touch this, 
or injure that, or break the other. Every 
article in the child's room should be there 
for his particular convenience and enjoy- 
ment, and he should be allowed its full, free 
use, being taught, meanwhile, the difference 
between the use and the abuse of his own 
property. Neither should he be reproved or 
punished for any accidental or occasional in- 
jury to the articles he handles. The muscles 
of the little fingers are not yet firm ; cerebral 
development is not yet sufficiently co-ordi- 
nated to control their action. And therefore, 
while it is proper to express sorrow or regret 
at any accidental destruction, the child should 
not be alarmed or punished for an occurrence 
for which he was in nowise responsible. 



CHAPTER XVI 
TO AVOID SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

It is a vital error to magnify in the mind 
of a child the importance of things ; neither 
clothes, nor farniture, nor ornaments, nor 
playthings shoidd be magnified to the detri- 
ment of the child's happiness or health. We 
of the adidt world, who are in a sense slaves 
to the things we think we own, should at 
least save the children from a too early and 
oppressive sense of subordination to inanimate 
objects. The nursery may be artistic and com- 
fortable, and still contain nothing that fills or 
litters it, and nothing that is easily injured 
or destroyed. A child's playthings may be 
sufficiently bountiful to satisfy all his nat- 
ural demands for amusement without includ- 
ing anything that will easily tear or break, 



140 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

or in whose use he must constantly be 
warned to be careful. We ourselves may 
reduce the occasions of reprimand and warn- 
ing to such an extent that we shall neither 
weary nor tire him. Windows should be 
guarded by strong bars, stairways protected 
by swinging gates, the open fire shielded by 
a screen, rocking-chairs and light furniture 
with sharp corners banished from the nurs- 
ery ; and then the little one may safely be 
allowed to seek his own amusement and 
make his own investigation throughout the 
whole limit of his domain, free from the 
constant repetition of " Don't " and " You 
must not," which is very wearing to his 
temper, and totally incompatible with his 
best mental and physical development. 

While the child should not be interrupted 
nor hampered in his childish occupations, 
neither should he, on the other hand, be 
spoiled by too much entertaining or assist- 
ance from older people. His own methods 
of investigation and his natural instincts in 



TO AVOID SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 141 

seeking certain kinds of amusement are the 
least exciting, and at the same time the most 
instructive, because they are the most natu- 
ral. Children who are constantly nagged at, 
for that very reason require constant amuse- 
ment, while children who are rationally and 
judiciously neglected will soon learn to enter- 
tain themselves. 

In the matter of dress, the ideal condition 
with the child, as indeed it should be with 
the adult, is to devise such a costume as 
shall, first of all, not make the wearer self-con- 
scious. He should be as unconscious of his 
clothes as an animal is of its fur, or a bird of 
its feathers. With little children the only 
element necessary to contribute to this result 
is to provide an abundance of dresses of uni- 
form quality. The mind of a young child is 
incapable of remembering. We give our- 
selves and it much trouble from failure to 
appreciate this fact. The young mind is 
intensely receptive, and absorbs an infinite 
number of vivid and varying impressions ; 



142 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

but in its undeveloped condition it is incapa- 
ble of consecutive or prolonged effort. The 
very structure of its brain precludes the pos- 
sibility of its keeping in mind our warnings 
and injunctions. ISTo child can remember to 
keep clean. If we enjoin upon it a hundred 
times a day not to soil its dress, we nag just 
so many times and produce no permanent 
effect whatever. It should therefore be pro- 
vided with such an abundance of dresses or 
aprons that we may remove entirely from 
its overburdened mind any responsibility for 
keeping clean, and transfer the duty to the 
nurse, who should discharge it by frequent 
renewing of the simple outer garment ex- 
posed to the dirt. 

With an older child, In w^hom the power 
of comparison is developed, we need to take 
other precautions to prevent self-conscious- 
ness, which so frequently grows out of pa- 
rental error in juvenile costume. All our pre- 
conceived notions as to artistic regulations 
or the requirements of good sense should be 



TO AVOID SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 143 

waived in favor of general usage, at least for 
the outer garment, which is most in evidence, 
SO that the child may not by any comment 
or criticism on the part of his companions be 
made conscious of singularity in the cut or 
quality of his clothing. His garments should 
not be elegant, or shabby, or eccentric, as 
judged by the average standard of his play- 
fellows. No superabundance of riches should 
tempt a mother to dress her child conspicu- 
ously better than its companions. If the 
stress of poverty renders it absolutely neces- 
sary that a child should be dressed less well 
than his fellows, the reason and the neces- 
sity for such digression should be clearly 
and simply explained as soon as his compre- 
hension is adequate to such reasoning. The 
circumstances should be presented to him as 
making the highest claim for self-sacrifice 
on the ground of the good of his family. 
Then his shabby dress will help him tow- 
ards self -discipline rather than self-concen- 
tration. 



144 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

Many a child artistically and sensibly 
dressed yet suffers tortures of which the 
adult mind can hardly conceive, simply be- 
cause his costume differs from that of his 
comrades. Causes seemingly unimportant 
can yet cruelly wound a nature over-sensi- 
tive to ridicule. To yield to a child in a 
matter of which he cannot be the best judge 
seems to many parents folly, whose outcome 
is to pamper and spoil him. But, on the 
other hand, we must consider that the cut 
and color of a child's garment are far more 
important to him than they can be to us, 
and that as long as the under-garments con- 
form to hygienic rules, the outside garments 
can usually be modified without any sacrifice 
of health or discipline — certainly without 
any detriment to the health of the child or 
the dignity of the parent. It is not merely 
a question of the child's will against our 
will. The principle involved goes deeper, 
touching the dangerous undercurrents of a 
child's character. For intense self-conscious- 



TO AVOID SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 145 

ness — easily incurred in childhood, almost 
ineradicable in manhood — is always intense- 
ly obnoxious, and cannot but be fatal to the 
best development of its unhappy victim. 



CHAPTER XVII 
THE NURSERY-MAID 

Within the past ten years a great interest 
has been aroused in the scientific training 
and development of young children. This 
is partly due to the general spread of intel- 
ligence concerning the importance of the 
early years of life, partly to intelligent study 
of child-life by the kindergarten enthusiasts, 
and somewhat also to the great increase of 
college-bred women in the ranks of mothers, 
physicians, and teachers. But this healthful 
activity has not yet had time to crystallize 
to any great extent into practical rules, nor 
has it, so far, altered the fact that American 
children of the well-to-do classes are less well 
cared for than in England. They do not 
enjoy such average good health, and their 



THE NURSERY-MAID 147 

manners are proverbially as bad as it is pos- 
sible for them to be. 

Though the statement may at first seem 
unfounded, some little investigation will yet 
prove that this condition arises from the fact 
that American children receive too much at- 
tention and too little care. They also enter 
at too young an age into the stimulating, un- 
wholesome excitement of the life of the adult 
portion of the family. In England the chil- 
dren, not only of the upper classes, but even 
of the middle classes in moderate circum- 
stances, are provided Avitli their own apart- 
ments and watched by a special care-taker; 
and the routine of their daily life is suited to 
their immature years, as favorable results 
demonstrate. The children of an English 
family are by no means neglected by the 
mother. She personally formulates all the 
rules for their daily life, is a frequent visitor 
to the nursery, presides at many of their 
meals, receives from the nurse daily reports 
of their variation in health or departure 



148 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

from good conduct. She has a competent, 
well-trained nurse, sometimes two or three, 
to execute in detail her requirements. In 
America, in a family of equal social and 
financial standing, the mother either has no 
regular nurse at all, or, for economy's sake, 
puts up with an incompetent one; while 
among the wealthier classes, where one or 
more expensive nurses are secured, the 
mother almost universally abandons the 
supervision of her children, and practically 
leaves them to the less intelligent care of 
these women, whose personal peculiarities 
and habits are and must remain an unknown 
quantity to her, while she makes only a 
brief daily visit to the children's quarters. 

It sometimes happens that a young mother 
is conscious, in the care of her children, of 
real inferiority to her nurse. But it is possi- 
ble, and ought to be considered important, 
for every mother to learn at least as much as 
an ordinary uneducated nursery - maid can 
know. If she cares for her child herself 



THE NURSERY-MAID 149 

during the first six months of its life, she 
will already start the superior of the nurse 
in that she has attained some comprehension 
of the child's peculiarities and individual ten- 
dencies. During the period of seclusion pre- 
ceding the birth of the child she will find 
preliminary reading an opportune and enjoy- 
able occupation. Books and magazines on 
the care of children are multiplying in the 
land, and no expectant mother is now with- 
out means of obtaining the necessary infor- 
mation. 

In securing a nursery-maid it is usually bet- 
ter for a mother to engage a young girl of 
superior intelligence who is w^illing to learn, 
rather than to attempt to obtain an experi- 
enced nurse who already fancies she knows 
everything, and consequently ignores any in- 
struction not consistent with her ancient 
code of nursery routine. Moreover, "experi- 
ence" too often means a knowledge of how 
to keep a child quiet with drugs, to frighten 
him into submission with fearful stories or 



150 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

dire threats, to spoil his temper with needless 
opposition, or to correct his faults by pun- 
ishment. The new and infinitely valuable 
scientific methods for the care of children 
are absolutely incomprehensible to the old 
and "experienced" nurse. Incomprehensi- 
ble they may also be to the young and in- 
experienced nursery-maid ; but her very ig- 
norance makes her willing to carry out even 
that which she does not and cannot thor- 
oughly comprehend, and which it is not im- 
portant that she should understand from its 
scientific side, if the mother will direct and 
supervise the daily routine until it has be- 
come force of habit with both nurse and 
child. There are absolutely no experienced 
nurses, measured by the new methods of car- 
ing for children. Acknowledged inexperi- 
ence is therefore our safest refuge. 

The most important qualifications in 
choosing an applicant for this systematic 
training as a nurse are good health, personal 
cleanliness, fondness for children, good tem- 



THE NURSERY-MAID 151 

per, a cheerful disposition, a desire to fol- 
low instructions, and absolute truthfulness. 
Some of these qualities can be ascertained 
only upon trial ; but as the combination of 
all the qualities necessary is not unreasona- 
ble or unusual, we may at least hope to find 
them more often than we have been able to 
secure the more exceptional and really less 
desirable quality — long experience. 

Such a routine of daily life as that which 
these articles advise, which has been tried 
in hundreds of cases and proved to produce 
most desirable results, may certainly be ea- 
sily understood by the average mother, and 
by her put into practice with moderate ex- 
ercise of personal care. It may be taught 
to any intelligent nursery-maid, and after a 
few months' practice carried out by her in 
detail, with a careful daily report of its re- 
sults to the mother, who shall give only a 
general supervision. 

We believe that the children who are to- 
tally neglected by the mother, and those 



152 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

who are cared for solely by her, are both, on 
an average, unfortunate. No child can at- 
tain his maximum physical vigor or best 
mental development without the supervision 
which maternal affection and superior intel- 
ligence can give. On the other hand, the 
mother is necessarily absorbed in many in- 
terests ; her husband, her house, her friends, 
her church, her relatives, occupy much of 
her time and attention, so that in her effort 
to do too much for her children she really 
does by far too little. Some of the infi- 
nite details necessary to the health and com- 
fort of her children are inevitably neglected. 
Buttons can be sewed on, dresses let down, 
faces washed, clothes kept in good condition, 
meals properly served ; dressing, undressing, 
naps, and exercise can be as well and bet- 
ter attended to by the nurse than by the 
mother. The definite amount of strength 
and the limited number of hours which a 
mother has to give to her children each day 
may better be reserved for more important 



THE NUKSERY-MAID 153 

items than buttons and dirty hands. These 
items are not the most important ; but in 
the pressure of every-day life the material 
details in the care of children are often so 
absorbing that they consume literally all 
the mother's time and thought, so that she 
has neither energy nor opportunity for the 
higher duties which touch on mental and 
moral development. She has no time for 
her own personal development, for compan- 
ionship with her husband, for the recreation 
of social life, nor indeed for anything but 
buttons and dirty faces. 

Even where the absence of a nursery-maid 
has, for reasons of economy, seemed necessa- 
ry, her employment would become possible 
if its true value as bearing upon the ultimate 
health and happiness of the family were 
properly appreciated. It is simply a ques- 
tion of the relative importance of the vari- 
ous expenses. In America many a woman 
thinks she must have diamonds and costly 
costumes, even thouo^h she is forced, in con- 



154 INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD 

sequence, to manage without a nursery-maid. 
In England a mother in moderate circum- 
stances thinks she must have a nursery- 
maid, even though she never owns a dia- 
mond nor wears anything better than a 
home-made stuff dress. 

Many American mothers cherish the mis- 
guided sentimental impression that no one 
can give the children such good care as 
themselves. But no mother can give her 
children really good care and do anything 
else, without absolute demoralization of her 
own health and complete arresting of all 
personal mental growth. 



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